THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


PUTNAM    PLACE 


BY 


GRACE   LATHROP   COLLIN 


NEW   YORK   AND   LONDON 

HARPER    &>    BROTHERS 

PUBLISHERS    1903 


Copyright,  1903,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 

All  rights  reserved. 
Published  March,  1903. 


TO 

E.  R.  C. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  PLACE i 

THE  PASTOR •      9 

THE  RITES        ...........  40 

THE  TRADITION       .........  53 

ANGELS  UNAWARES    .     .    '. 80 

THE  AFFECTION 116 

THE  QUARREL     ..........  140 

A  TIME  TO  SEW       .     .     . 158 

THE  CONSCIENCE 172 

THE  CITY  MOUSE    .........  196 

THE  GATE 208 

THE  FORCE 226 

THE  BABY    .                                    .....  246 


PUTNAM    PLACE 


PUTNAM    PLACE 


THE    PLACE 

UTNAM  PLACE  cannot  be  de 
scribed  as  a  street,  for  it  does 
not  lead  anywhere.  It  sees  no 
reason  why  it  should  lead  any 
where.  It  is  an  end  in  itself. 
Its  flagged  sidewalks  are  considered  by  its 
residents  not  as  paths  leading  to  the  main 
street,  but  as  conveniences  for  reaching 
each  other's  houses.  At  the  farther  end 
of  the  Place  is  a  meadow,  with  a  willow- 
edged  brook  beyond.  This  meadow  is  the 
domain  of  the  Lattimer  cow,  with  fat,  red 
sides  like  a  horse-chestnut;  and  of  the 
Hooper  horse,  a  lanky,  pepper-and-salt 
beast  that  in  summer  wears  trappings  of 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

white  net,  with  tassels  that  flap  about  his 
yellowish  legs,  and  in  winter  is  muffled  in 
a  gray  woollen  chest  -  protector  tied,  bib- 
fashion,  about  his  rigid  old  neck. 

There  are  only  five  houses  in  Putnam 
Place,  but  there  are  a  great  many  trees. 
These  are  of  that  most  genteel  variety 
known  as  wineglass  elms,  and  stand  in  two 
decorous  rows,  meeting  in  Gothic  arches 
above  the  roadway.  Their  great  girth, 
their  mighty  branches,  with  the  Putnam 
Library  and  the  Putnam  fire-engine,  are 
exhibited  to  strangers  as  among  the  won 
ders  of  the  town.  But  to  the  residents  of 
the  Place,  the  trees  are  much  more  than 
objects  of  local  interest.  They  are,  rather, 
distinguished  citizens — nay,  more  than  that, 
they  are  companions.  For  they  have  partak 
en  of  human  experiences  that  have  gone  on 
within  their  shade,  and  now,  like  the  present 
residents  of  the  Place,  they  have  long  since 
lost  their  youthful  vigor,  and  their  prime 
is  a  thing  of  the  past.  Many  are  the  trees 
whose  symmetry  has  been  marred  by  the 


THE    PLACE 

lopping  off  of  dead  branches ;  many  are  the 
hidden  bands  and  props;  many  the  nicely 
concealed  scars  of  withered  limbs ;  one  fract 
ured  tree-trunk  has  been  securely  bricked 
up,  and  the  knot-holes  have  received  a  sort 
of  skilful  dental  work.  There  is  a  good 
deal  of  discreet  make-up  in  these  elm-trees' 
aspect  of  well-preserved  and  comely  old 
age. 

Behind  the  trees  stand  the  houses,  with 
yards  in  neighborly  companionship,  yet  with 
the  individuality  of  each  preserved  and  ren 
dered  definite  by  the  variously  patterned 
fences.  Thus,  before  the  house  of ' '  the  Hale 
girls,"  at  the  corner  next  the  street,  is  a 
white  lattice  fence.  It  has  been  cut  away 
in  part,  to  accommodate  an  imperious  old 
elm  that,  with  the  knowledge  that  now 
"men  folk"  pass  no  more  in  and  out  of  the 
door  under  the  arbor  of  honeysuckle,  but 
that  only  two  maiden  sisters  are  left  to  ex 
postulate  with  an  elm's  inroads,  has  de 
manded  that  the  little  front  yard  be  used 
for  no  purpose  but  to  protect  its  roots,  a 
3 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

demand  admiringly  acceded  to.  Such  is 
the  respect,  in  Putnam  Place,  paid  to  the 
exactions  of  old  age. 

The  Forrester  house,  next  door,  is  enclosed 
in  upright  pickets,  cut  across  the  top  in 
graduated  heights  into  garland  shape.  Miss 
Millicent  Forrester  has  lived  alone  since  the 
death  of  her  father,  the  doctor.  She  busies 
herself  in  the  care  of  the  flower-beds,  of  the 
canary,  and  in  supervision  lest  the  fluted 
bands  with  rosettes  at  the  corners  that  frame 
the  doorway  should  show  a  streak  of  dust. 
With  scissors  in  her  gloved  hands,  she  kneels 
on  the  lawn  to  trim  away  the  tall  grass- 
spears  that  have  grown  so  close  to  the  fence 
that  they  have  eluded  the  sickle,  and  whose 
waving  blue  shadows  vary  the  whiteness  of 
the  fence-posts.  But  at  the  Forrester  gate 
way  there  is  no  tree.  The  proudest  elm  in 
the  row  fell  in  the  storm  on  the  night  that 
the  doctor  died,  and  its  branches  strewed  the 
box-bordered  path  down  which  the  black- 
garbed  men  and  women  followed  his  coffin. 
In  the  succeeding  days,  as  his  daughter, 
4 


THE    PLACE 

quiet  and  numb,  went  about  her  self-ap 
pointed  tasks,  the  neighbors  suggested  that 
a  sapling  be  planted  in  the  unsightly  spot ; 
but  Miss  Millicent,  her  hands  tensely  clasped, 
silently  shook  her  head ;  and  so,  in  front  of 
the  Forrester  house,  the  sunshine  falls  unen- 
tangled  by  elm  branches. 

Between  Miss  Millicent  and  the  meadow 
live  the  pastor  and  his  wife,  the  Hoopers, 
in  charge  of  the  First  Congregational  Church 
and  the  horse  aforementioned.  Their  yel 
low-barred  fence  climbs  and  descends  good- 
naturedly  over  ground  upheaved  by  the 
boles  of  three  great  elms,  behind  which, 
quite  as  an  annex,  appears  the  parsonage. 
It  is  a  rambling  house,  with  fan -shaped 
window  in  the  gable.  It  is  of  a  cheerful, 
pumpkin  color,  the  paint  peeling  and  crack 
ling  with  age,  and  stained  to  the  color  of 
iron-rust  below  the  window-sills.  The  barn, 
also  with  a  fan-shaped  window  in  the  loft, 
lest  there  be  any  social  distinction,  crowds 
the  house  in  an  informal  sort  of  way,  as  if 
nudging  its  elbow. 

5 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

Across  the  street  is  the  house  distinguish 
ed  by  the  presence  of  the  only  other  man 
in  the  Place  besides  the  minister,  Judge 
Lattimer,  a  portly,  deliberate,  urbane  old 
gentleman,  who  walks  to  and  fro  from  his 
office  swinging  a  gold-headed  cane  as  if  it 
were  a  censer.  He  affects  a  blending  of 
the  courtly  and  the  magisterial  in  manner, 
until  he  crosses  his  threshold,  when,  it  is  af 
firmed  by  "those  who  ought  to  know,"  the 
magisterial  element  is  eliminated.  His  sis 
ter,  Miss  Helena,  is  a  birdlike  person,  who 
wears  a  plumage  of  frilled  white  sacques 
in  summer  and  of  fluffy  white  shawls  in 
winter.  The  Lattimer  house  stands  close 
to  the  sidewalk,  with  two  curved  iron  rail 
ings  at  the  ends  of  the  porch.  It  is  a  cross 
to  Miss  Helena  that  for  her,  therefore,  there 
can  never  be  a  woodbine-sheltered  veranda 
as  a  station  for  viewing  the  length  of  the 
Place,  a  position  for  which  the  house  is 
otherwise  admirably  adapted.  There  is 
some  compensation,  however,  in  the  green- 
blinded  window  of  the  upper  hall;  and 
6 


THE    PLACE 

alert,  indeed,  will  be  the  scout  who  eludes 
the  sentinel  in  that  watch-tower. 

Next  door,  with  tall  pillars  and  classic 
gable,  is  a  house  which  gives  the  effect  of  a 
deserted  Greek  temple.  Five  years  before, 
Miss  Caroline  Putnam  had  been  left  an  only 
daughter,  at  the  age  of  thirty,  to  the 
manifest  destiny  of  service  in  that  temple 
as  vestal  virgin ;  but  she  deserted  this  trust 
by  marrying,  as  Miss  Hale  would  tell  you, 
"a  person  by  the  name  of  Bumpus.  Her 
home  is  at  present  in  the  Middle  West,  in 
New  York,  I  believe,  but  I  myself  have 
never  been  west  of  the  Hudson."  Where 
fore,  every  dead  leaf,  every  fallen  twig, 
every  bird's-nest  in  the  curves  of  the  Ionic 
capitals  remind  the  residents  of  the  Place 
of  a  neglected  mission. 

Such  is  Putnam  Place,  an  eddy  in  the 
stream,  quite  untouched  by  the  main  cur 
rent,  whose  waters,  unaffected  by  the 
great  tides  of  human  life,  sway  to  and  fro, 
deep  and  untroubled,  within  prescribed 
limits  of  their  own.  The  Place  is  complete 
7 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

in  itself — not  as  a  town  or  even  as  a  country 
is  complete,  but  rather  as  a  world.  Self- 
sufficient  in  matter,  mind,  and  morals,  it 
revolves  in  its  orbit,  regarding  with  kindly 
wonderment  and  gentle  dignity  the  va 
garies  which  make  up  the  life  of  the  outer 
world. 


THE    PASTOR 


HERE  is  a  cleanliness  united 
with  the  godliness  of  Put 
nam's  First  Congregational 
Church,  due  to  a  renovation 
of  its  shingles  and  paint  with 
out,  its  cushions  and  wood  -  work  within. 
The  results  are  as  unlovely  as  the  taste  of 
the  black-walnut  and  green-reps  age  could 
demand;  yet  their  thorough  effectualness 
makes  apparent  that  the  work,  however  mis 
guided,  was  done  as  unto  the  Lord  and  not 
unto  man.  But  in  response  to  any  com 
pliments  upon  this  model  of  repair,  the  Rev 
erend  Mr.  Hooper,  the  present  shepherd  of 
the  First  Congregational  flock,  raises  depre- 
catingly  his  thin- veined  hand.  "  These  are 
the  fruits  of  the  labor  of  our  brother  Kirk- 
9 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

ham,"  he  says, "  a  man  universally  esteemed 
and  beloved,  and  a  faithful  minister  of  the 
Gospel  above  fifty  years.  The  project  of 
inserting  a  memorial  tablet,"  he  may  add, 
"is  under  consideration."  But  as  he  in 
dicates  the  possible  point  of  interruption  in 
the  white  wall,  the  glow  of  admiration  for 
his  predecessor  fades  into  dubiousness  over 
the  feasibility  of  thus  marring  the  unsul 
lied  expanse. 

In  former  years  as  distinctive  a  feature  of 
the  local  landscape  as  the  bowlders  at  the 
turn  of  the  road,  or  the  clumsy,  red-arched 
bridge  spanning  Mill  River,  was  the  figure 
of  the  Reverend  Jesse  Kirkham.  He  was  a 
large  man,  with  a  broad,  sanguine  face,  and 
eyes  which,  in  spite  of  one  drooping  lid  that 
could  have  contributed  a  quizzical  shrewd 
ness,  retained  their  visionary  gaze.  He  had 
come  to  Putnam  when  a  gaunt,  awkward 
lad,  hoarding  a  wealth  of  sentiment  that 
would  have  done  credit  to  any  of  the  young 
ladies  composing  the  Bible  class  which  he 
blushingly  instructed.  In  those  days  his 
10 


THE    PASTOR 

enthusiasm  was  equalled  only  by  his  shy 
ness,  and  although  the  shyness  had  been  re 
placed  by  a  guileless,  optimistic  confidence, 
the  enthusiasm  was  fresh  every  morning. 
Through  each  month  of  the  year,  through 
each  day  of  the  week,  diligent  in  his  pastoral 
business,  he  drove  along  highways  and  by 
ways.  His  companion  was  a  sorrel  nag  with 
pale  mane  and  tail.  In  summer  this  steed 
was  apparently  permanently  attached  to 
the  rattling  -  wheeled  buggy  with  swaying 
top;  over  his  ears  he  wore  a  netted  cap, 
freakishly  constructed  of  red,  with  an  effect 
like  the  head-dress  of  Mephistopheles ;  but 
his  calm,  unimpassioned  dignity  surmount 
ed  this  accident  even  as  the  mild  authority 
of  Mr.  Kirkham's  bearing  was  unimpaired 
by  the  tanned  Panama  hat  set  askew,  with 
tags  of  black  ribbon — Mrs.  Kirkham  had 
purchased  a  yard  for  the  hat-band,  and  was 
loath  to  discard  the  superfluous  inches — 
flapping  above  his  left  ear.  In  winter  the 
horse,  puffing  as  if  he  smoked  an  invisible 
cigar,  dragged  a  cutter  with  chipped  green 
ii 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

paint  and  tattered  fur  robe,  along  the  blue 
shadowed  track ;  and  Mr.  Kirkham  was  be 
neficent  in  knotted  shawl  and  ear-muffs. 

As  a  child  he  had  hit  upon  the  ministry 
as  alone  containing  the  opportunity  for  ro 
mantic  devotion  without  which  life  was  as 
nothing  worth.  Throughout  his  boyhood 
the  zeal  of  the  apostle  burned  clear  and 
high.  Prone  in  the  orchard  grass  he  would 
turn,  fascinated,  crumbled  pages  of  scratch 
ed,  calf -bound  volumes  "Compiled  for  the 
Help  of  Young  Ministers" ;  or  would  revive 
dusty  memoirs — bound  in  crimson  boards 
faded  to  saffron,  or  in  black  faded  to  olive — 
of  men  whose  faith  had  carried  them  to 
fabled  lands,  or  whose  conviction  had  trans 
muted  the  commonplace  into  the  heroic. 
With  ardent  eyes  he  would  gaze  at  a  series 
of  engravings,  stained  and  warped  with  age, 
hung  about  the  available  wall  space  of  the 
best  bedroom.  There  were  keen  Calvin  and 
ponderous  Luther  flanking  the  head-board, 
broad-browed  Melanchthon  above  the  bu 
reau,  sad-eyed  Tyndale  over  the  bowl  and 

12 


THE    PASTOR 

ewer,  enkindled  Whitefield  above  the  man 
tel.  Moved  by  an  artless  vanity,  the  boy 
chose  the  last  worthy  as  his  favorite  inspi 
ration;  for  in  George  Whitefield' s  squint 
ing  eye  and  vehement  face  there  was  the 
suggestion  of  a  resemblance,  not  altogether 
fanciful,  to  Jesse  Kirkham.  The  dream  of 
his  youth  was,  in  emulation  of  Whitefield,  to 
labor  "at  the  very  tail  of  the  world";  and 
the  first  renunciation  of  his  career,  the  de 
cision  to  remain  by  the  side  of  his  widowed 
mother,  found  solace  in  the  example  again 
of  Whitefield,  who  in  his  native  England 
had  been  content  to  go  "  about  preaching  in 
the  fields  and  market-places."  When  Put 
nam  called  him  to  her  church,  he  tried  to 
fancy  a  similarity  between  her  breezy,  shad 
ed  streets  and  the  crowded  Bristol  where 
his  exemplar  had  exhorted  with  such  spec 
tacular  success;  but  even  his  imagination 
halted  at  an  analogy  between  that  British 
hall  thronged  with  excited  clusters  and  the 
decorously  filled  pews  that  greeted  him  Sun 
day  after  Sunday.  Soon,  under  the  com- 
13 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

pelling  force  of  their  sobriety,  the  expecta 
tion  and  even  the  desire  for  the  romantic 
faded  into  the  staid  habitudes  of  the  New 
England  pastor. 

In  Colonial  times,  the  First  Congregation 
al  had  been  a  church  militant.  Behind  it, 
as  high  as  the  belfry,  rose  a  wall  of  rough 
crags,  fringed  with  sparse,  slight  -  rooted 
grasses.  Fortified  by  this  rampart,  the 
church  had  stood  the  austere  guardian  of 
the  village  huddled  before  it.  In  those  early 
days,  armed  men  stationed  on  these  rocks 
had  watched  while  the  congregation,  with 
in  doors,  prayed ;  and  if  at  any  moment  the 
call  had  come  to  defend  the  lives  or  the  liber 
ties  of  the  worshippers,  there  would  not  have 
been  the  incongruity  of  any  transition  from 
lighter  to  graver  matters.  The  order  of 
services  had  emulated  a  fundamental  sim 
plicity  such  as  might  have  been  achieved 
by  the  early  Christians.  Later,  when  neither 
savages  nor  tyrants  were  suspected  of  lurk 
ing  about  its  doorway,  a  similar  bareness 
was  retained,  not  so  much  as  a  matter  of 
14 


THE    PASTOR 

taste  as  a  matter  of  course.  The  hymn- 
singing  of  the  seated  congregation  was  led 
by  a  choir,  whose  personnel  was  a  weekly 
query.  The  collection  was  taken  by  deacons 
who  hurried  up  and  down  in  hang  -  dog 
fashion — to  the  only  sound  of  their  creaking 
boot-soles — fairly  slung  the  frayed  wicker 
baskets  together,  and  slunk  back  to  their 
seats  shamefaced  at  being  caught  in  con 
tributing  a  spectacle.  Whereupon  the  ser 
mon  was  introduced  with  the  promptness 
which  succeeds  a  painful  but  necessary 
ordeal.  Within  the  church  walls — darkened 
coldly  rather  than  mellowly  with  years, 
lighted  by  small,  crinkled  panes,  with  the 
high  pulpit  that  projected,  bulkhead -like, 
over  the  pews,  and  was  approached  by  an 
uncarpeted  aisle  of  shrunken  boards — this 
aridity  of  ceremonial  was  as  peculiarly  fit 
ting  as  a  fare  of  bread  and  water  within  a 
prison  cell. 

Although  in  his  congregation  those  who 
were  children  had  become  parents,  no  re 
alization  of  increasing  years  impeded  Mr. 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

Kirkham's  routine.  Through  the  week  he 
joined  the  force  in  the  hay-field  at  the  first 
rumble  of  an  impending  thunder-storm,  or 
the  snow-plough  brigade  after  February 
blizzards.  On  Sunday  he  laid  aside  his 
neighborly  and  assumed  his  priestly  office, 
addressing  with  impersonal  fervor  the  im 
passive,  familiar  faces  that  looked  back  at 
him.  There  was  an  immutability  in  the 
temperament  of  the  audience,  as  if  the 
six  secular  days  reverted  to  the  identical 
seventh.  Sometimes  this  stability,  as  op 
posed  to  his  individual  influences,  appalled 
him.  There  was  Deacon  Huntley;  twenty 
years  ago  he  had  formed  the  habit  of  un 
tying  his  horse's  hitching-strap  at  the  first 
stroke  of  the  bell,  and  in  the  company  of 
those  members  of  the  family  who  hap 
pened  to  be  ready,  and  in  the  absence  of 
those  unprepared,  of  driving  to  church ;  and 
twenty  years  hence,  were  Deacon  Huntley 
"spared,"  he  would  "attend  divine  wor 
ship"  followed  by  a  straggling  brood.  There 
was  Deacon  Pollock ;  Mr.  Kirkham  might  as 
16 


THE    PASTOR 

well  try  to  influence  the  Pollock  house  as  the 
man.  It  was  an  unprepossessing  house; 
its  gable  of  shining  shingles  gave  an 
effect  of  sleekly  parted  hair,  and  the  two 
windows  beneath,  with  muslin  curtains  be 
low  dark  shades,  suggested  disparagingly 
rolled  eyes;  while  the  gable  of  the  piazza 
roof  repeated  the  drooping  lines  of  the 
deacon's  pursed,  sour  mouth.  Quite  of  an 
other  disposition  were  Deacon  Shepard  and 
his  domicile.  The  flat  roof  surmounted  the 
broad,  low  walls,  with  small,  glittering  port 
holes  of  windows  high  up  under  the  eaves; 
and  the  line  of  the  piazza  stretched  across 
its  front  with  the  genial  air  of  the  deacon's 
ready  smile.  "Influence  them?"  Mr.  Kirk- 
ham  would  helplessly  query.  Then  a  more 
immediate  discouragement  of  destitution  or 
bereavement  would  call  his  attention  from 
the  theoretical  trouble. 

In  this  annual  round,   dun  as  autumn 

meadows,  there  was  a  single  flaunting  bit  of 

color.     Owing  to  the  rocky  boundary,  the 

village  of  Putnam  could  not  cluster  about 

17 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

its  meeting-house,  but  ranged  itself  in  a  pro 
cession  that  straggled  more  widely  in  the  se 
curity  of  ensuing  years.  In  the  pastorate  of 
Jesse  Kirkham,  the  nearest  and  consequent 
ly  the  oldest  houses  had  fallen  into  decay, 
so  that  the  church  stood  in  a  village  suburb. 
On  one  side  was  a  broad  cornfield,  on  the 
other  a  strip  of  barren  land,  marked  by  one 
grassy  hollow,  the  site  of  an  ancient  cellar. 
Here  for  a  few  summer  days,  between  Sun 
days,  when  the  church  stood  empty  and  de 
serted,  a  band  of  gypsies  was  accustomed  to 
encamp.  In  the  church  sheds,  in  place  of 
Congregational  buggies  and  carryalls,  stood 
a  miscellany  of  tarpaulin  -  covered,  ram 
shackle  vehicles.  Tethered  to  tree -trunks 
nibbled  by  fat  old  plough  -  horses,  which 
once  a  week  assumed  carriage  harness,  stood 
vagrant  beasts.  On  the  boundary  stone 
wall  hung  faded  crimson  cloths.  Children 
with  a  superfluity  of  beauty  to  compen 
sate  for  scantiness  of  attire  scrambled  over 
the  thin  grass.  Blowsy  women  fussed  over 
rusty  kettles  and  piled  bedding.  Glancing- 
18 


THE    PASTOR 

eyed  men  stretched  themselves  under  trees 
or  leaned  against  cart-wheels.  The  back 
ground — the  church  with  belfry  set  astride 
the  ridge-pole  of  the  bleak,  angled  roof,  be 
tween  two  elms  as  precise  in  their  spreading 
branches  as  old-time  bouquets — gave  the 
effect  of  the  wrong  drop  curtain. 

During  its  sojourn,  this  travelling  mu 
nicipality  refrained  from  foraging  expedi 
tions  into  the  village ;  and  while  neighboring 
communities  may  have  suffered  the  more, 
Putnam,  unscathed,  could  regard  the  vaga 
bonds  with  charity  added  to  indifference. 
But  to  Mr.  Kirkham,  those  summer  days 
were  the  single  link  that  connected  his 
prosaic  present  with  his  aspiring  past.  To 
him  the  gypsies'  presence  was  the  indulgent 
answer  to  his  prayer  that  he  might  reach 
heathen  nations;  for  while  it  was  not  or 
dained  that  he  should  go  to  them,  here  in 
the  Putnam  church-yard  had  they  not  been 
brought  to  him  ?  Within  the  band  his  greet 
ing  was  assured,  his  patronage  was  become 
a  tradition.  That  first  summer,  a  glowing- 
19 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

faced  youth,  he  had  leaped  the  wall  and 
stood  among  them;  in  the  following  years, 
as  befitted  the  husband  of  her  who  had  been 
the  primmest  of  the  young  ladies  of  the 
Bible  class,  and  the  father  of  two  homely, 
docile  little  girls,  he  had  come  striding  by 
the  roadway ;  of  late  the  sorrel  nag  brought 
him  to  the  church  stepping-block,  whence, 
a  trifle  slowly  and  stiffly,  he  approached, 
bearing  as  propitiatory  offering  a  basket  of 
thoroughly  domesticated  vegetables.  But 
through  the  vicissitudes  of  years  one  epi 
sode  was  unfailingly  repeated.  On  the  day 
before  the  gypsies'  departure,  he  gathered 
them  under  a  tree,  and,  waiving  all  dif 
ferences  in  manner  of  life,  "addressed  them 
a  few  remarks."  Then  it  was  that  his  heart 
throbbed  with  early  impulses,  awakened 
now  without  bitterness,  but  rather  with  the 
pensive  charm  of  an  opened  book  whose 
pages  recall  the  mood  in  which  the  tale  was 
read  rather  than  the  tale  itself.  Standing 
there  before  the  swarthy,  foreign,  intent 
faces,  gathered  in  rows  under  flickering  sun 
20 


and  shadow,  he  thrilled  to  account  himself 
one  of  the  brotherhood  of  vehement  souls 
who  have  betaken  themselves  to  preaching 
in  the  fields;  and  when  the  only  traces  of 
the  gypsy  invasion  were  a  singed  circle  on 
the  ground,  a  scarlet  rag  caught  between 
two  stones,  he  cherished  the  belief  that 
this  occasion  had  furnished  his  closest 
approach  to  his  great  prototype,  White- 
field. 

But  when  the  interests  of  Putnam,  so 
long  converged  about  the  church  set  at 
the  upper  end  of  Putnam  Street,  were  dis 
tracted  by  a  rival — an  ochre-walled,  vermil 
ion-trimmed  railroad  station  at  the  lower 
end — Mr.  Kirkham  felt  that  the  time  for 
stirring  action  was  at  hand.  Should  he 
permit  the  continuance  of  the  present  con 
dition  of  affairs  —  stagnation  at  the  one 
boundary,  enterprise  at  the  other  —  would 
he  not  be  a  false  prophet,  crying  peace, 
peace,  when  there  is  no  peace?  On  his  sol 
itary  expeditions  to  outlying  farm-houses 
he  revolved  the  situation,  and  at  the  even- 

21 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

ing  meeting  of  the  church  committee  spoke 
the  conclusion  of  the  matter. 

"  It  has  been  borne  in  upon  me,"  he  said, 
"that  it  behooves  us  to  give  thought  to  the 
condition  of  this  our  tabernacle.  As  those 
of  the  brethren  who  have  come  to  my  as 
sistance  from  time  to  time  can  testify,  the 
roof  which  our  honored  forefathers  built  is 
given  to  leaking.  And  as  the  sisters,  gath 
ered  among  themselves,  have  reported,  the 
pulpit  cushions  and  other  furnishings  are 
beginning  to  give  signs  that  they  have  come 
down  to  us  from  the  past — a  past  which  we 
honor  by  preserving  the  spirit  and  not  the 
letter  of  its  donations  to  us.  It  would  be 
my  purpose,  which  I  present  for  your  earnest 
consideration,  to  give  this  church  a  thorough 
renovation  that  will  render  it  not  the  relic 
of  the  early  privations  and  struggles  of  our 
ancestors,  but  a  testimonial  to  the  pride 
and  devotion  with  which  we,  their  children, 
advance  the  fashion  of  this  edifice  step  by 
step  with  our  material  prosperity." 

"  Well  worth  considering.     A  very  proper 

22 


THE    PASTOR 

action,  I'm  sure,"  from  Deacon  Shepard's 
acquiescent  voice. 

"  Now  on  some  points  I  differ  from  Broth 
er  Shepard,"  contributed  Deacon  Pollock, 
"  and  this  is  one  of  them.  Not  but  what  a 
shingle  might  be  set  here  and  there  onto 
the  roof — it  ain't  that  I'm  grudging  that. 
But  this  meeting-house  wa'n't  built  to  be 
fussed  with  and  made  over  like  women's 
clothes,  and  I  vote  it  stays  just  as  'tis." 

Others  "took  part,"  but  their  remarks 
fell  under  the  watchwords  asserted  by  these 
captains.  As  the  matter  was  more  widely 
presented,  however,  the  company  of  Deacon 
Shepard  gained  rank  after  rank,  while 
Deacon  Pollock  was  left  with  a  few  strag 
glers  manifestly  out  of  step. 

It  was  ten  years  before  the  requisite 
hoard — by  stipulation  of  Mr.  Kirkham,  not 
permitted  to  interfere  with  "  our  missionary 
offerings  or  systematic  benevolence" — was 
gathered.  But  to  this  protracted  period, 
this  maximum  of  effort  to  the  minimum  of 
result,  Mr.  Kirkham  was  indifferent.  Nor 
23 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

was  it  the  announcements  of  the  odd  sums 
cleared  by  the  supper  or  the  social  or  the  en 
tertainment  that  brought  the  tremulousness 
of  emotion  to  his  voice;  but  the  conviction 
that,  banded  together  in  this  struggle  of 
thrift  against  penury,  as  in  the  older  days 
of  sterner  conflict,  the  spiritual  nature  of 
this  people  had  been  quickened.  The  un 
dertaking  was  a  visible  pledge  of  member 
ship  under  a  common  cause;  and,  to  those 
excluded,  its  privations  and  endeavors  ap 
peared  a  privilege.  Vacant  spaces  of  pew 
backs  to  which  his  eye  had  long  been  accus 
tomed  were  occupied;  fresh  voices  joined 
vigorously  in  the  hymn-singing.  Mr.  Kirk- 
ham's  face  shone  with  a  fresh  radiance. 

On  the  memorable  Sunday  when  service 
was  for  the  first  time  held  in  the  renovated 
building,  all  notably  new  bonnets  in  fresh 
ly  washed  wagons  were  turned  towards  the 
First  Congregational  Church.  The  shingled 
roof  gleamed  yellow,  the  clapboards  stretch 
ed  in  an  unbroken  dazzle  of  white.  The 
grassy  path  to  the  door  was  marked  out 
24 


THE    PASTOR 

by  flag-stones.  Within,  the  old  pulpit  had 
been  replaced  by  a  black- walnut  table  on  a 
platform,  the  choir  was  screened  by  a  green 
curtain,  and  a  green  carpet  covered  the 
aisle.  The  smell  of  wood  that  had  recent 
ly  known  scrubbing-brush  and  soap-suds, 
a  diffused  suggestion  of  paint,  a  flavor  of 
varnish,  were  the  odor  of  sanctity  to  Mr. 
Kirkham  as,  in  the  narrow  walnut  chair 
that  was  the  successor  of  the  claw-footed 
mahogany  one,  he  smiled  benignantly  upon 
the  rows  of  complacent  faces. 

And  with  that  very  smile  the  congrega 
tion  became  aware  of  the  crumpled  rose- 
leaf.  The  informality  of  the  greeting  was 
inconsistent  with  a  green-reps  background; 
he  should  rather  have  accepted  the  altered 
conditions  as  a  matter  of  course,  as  is  the 
manner  of  disciplined  families  on  finding  the 
table  set  out  with  the  gold -rimmed  china 
when  company  comes  to  supper.  Once 
again  before  the  sermon  their  minds  were 
further  disturbed.  In  the  novelty  of  these 
surroundings,  how  threadbare  was  Mr.  Kirk- 
25 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

ham's  coat,  how  horny  the  knotted  hands 
emerging  from  the  white  cuffs,  how  dis 
tinct  the  boundary -line  —  as  marked  off 
by  the  tilted  Panama — between  his  tanned 
face  and  white  brow.  Mr.  Kirkham  was 
one  who  never  looked  so  clerical  as  in  over 
alls,  never  so  rustic  as  in  his  Sunday  black. 
With  a  growing  discontent  they  listened  to 
the  sermon.  His  discourses  were  always 
counsels  upon  conduct  rather  than  argu 
mentations;  and  on  this  Sunday  his  grati 
fied  heart  failed  to  bear  him  out  in  admon 
ishing  his  flock;  he  felt  himself  rather  the 
indulgent  parent  of  exemplary  children,  and 
his  phrases  of  commendation  and  encour 
agement  involved  no  bewildering  variety  of 
diction.  Further,  as  Mr.  Kirkham  himself 
recognized,  but  dismissed  for  matters  more 
essential,  an  incoherence  in  place  of  the 
ordered  exposition  and  deduction  was  ap 
parent.  All  the  preceding  night  he  had 
kept  his  place  with  the  physician  at  a  bed 
side;  it  was  not  until  he  was  driving  home 
in  the  cool  dawn  that  he  had  given  thought 
26 


THE    PASTOR 

to  the  sentences  he  was  now  delivering. 
But  the  realization  that  his  own  share  in 
the  service  had  special  significance  eluded 
his  simple  soul.  Quite  untroubled,  he  turn 
ed  to  his  Sunday  dinner. 

Later  in  the  week  his  horse  stopped  with 
the  others  that  with  their  drivers  were 
drawn  up  within  the  radius  of  the  warm 
whiffs  of  air,  compounded  of  soap,  tobacco, 
sugar,  and  kerosene,  from  the  opened  door 
of  the  post-office  and  provision  store. 

"Growing  weather,"  Mr.  Kirkham  cheer 
fully  exchanged  for  the  prescribed  pessimis 
tic  responses. 

"Don't  get  down,  I'll  fetch  your  mail," 
offered  Deacon  Shepard.  "It's  light  to 
night,"  he  commented,  as  he  handed  the 
yellow-tagged  church  paper  over  the  wheel. 
He  would  have  gone  on  his  way  had  not 
Deacon  Huntley,  emerging  from  the  brown 
perspective  of  barrels  and  boxes,  plucked 
his  gingham  sleeve. 

"There's  a  matter  we  might  just  as  well 
bring  up  now  as  any  time,"  said  Huntley, 
27 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

"and  while  there's  two  of  us.  To  come  to 
the  point,  Mr.  Kirkham,  it's  about  those 
gypsies.  The  end  of  next  month  it  '11  be 
about  time  for  them.  And  it's  the  mind 
of  quite  a  few — I  might  say  the  bigger  part 
of  your  congregation — that  as  the  church  is 
all  slicked  up,  we  shouldn't  allow  any  such 
vagrants  to  make  themselves  to  home  there ; 
and  as  you've  always  got  along  so  well  with 
them,  Shepard  here  and  I  reckoned  that  you 
might  be  the  man  to  say  we've  had  enough 
of  them." 

Mr.  Kirkham  turned  to  Deacon  Shepard, 
who  smiled,  embarrassed,  and  said, "  Deacon 
Huntley  has  reason  on  his  side,  as  I'm  sure 
you  see." 

Mr.  Kirkham' s  hand  crumpled  the  church 
paper.  "I  do  not  see,"  he  replied,  in  a 
monotone  meant  to  reach  only  the  two 
deacons  and  whose  unusual  pitch  caught 
the  attention  of  all  the  loitering  groups, 
"why  we  should  deprive  these  poor,  unen 
lightened  wanderers  of  this  shelter.  They 
have  done  no  harm  to  us,  and  they  offer  an 
28 


THE    PASTOR 

opportunity  of  possible  good  we  may  do 
to  them." 

Deacon  Shepard  squirmed  miserably. 
"There  now,  Huntley,"  he  compromised, 
"let's  let  the  matter  drop.  Maybe  they 
ar'n't  planning  to  come  to  Putnam  this 
summer,  anyway." 

"Lazy,  dirty,  thieving  rascals,"  argued 
Deacon  Huntley.  "Over  to  East  Weston 
they  robbed  Sim  Edwards' s  hen-roost.  It's 
not  safe  to  have  'em  round;  and,  besides, 
the  whole  field  looks  like  a  hurrah's  nest, 
what  with  their  rags  and  their  cook 
ing.  If  Mr.  Kirkham  ain't  inclined  to  read 
'em  the  riot  act,  there's  others  that 
are." 

"  I  never  was  one  to  chime  in  with  new 
fangled  notions,"  added  the  high  voice  of 
Deacon  Pollock  from  his  buckboard.  "  'S 
long  as  I  can  remember,  come  July,  those 
gypsies,  or  others  that  favored  them  consid 
erable,  have  been  in  that  lot.  And,  as  I've 
said  once  before,  that  church  wa'n't  built 
to  be  fussed  with,  and  now  I  say  again, 
29 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

those  gypsies  wa'n't  brought  here  to  be 
fussed  with." 

"  I  trust,"  said  Mr.  Kirkham,  in  the  same 
strained  monotone,  "that  no  action  will 
be  taken  in  this  matter."  Feeling  the  con- 
clusiveness  of  this  remark,  the  horse  pulled 
out  of  the  common  centre  to  which  all  the 
horses'  noses  were  directed,  and  turned  up 
the  road  to  the  Kirkham  barn. 

Within  a  few  days  the  irritation  of  this 
incident  had  disappeared  from  the  mind  of 
Mr.  Kirkham,  and  when  a  few  weeks  later 
his  daughters  returned,  it  was  quite  for 
gotten.  Lucretia  and  Cornelia — by  popular 
courtesy  "the  Kirkham  girls" — had  missed 
both  the  neat  prettiness  of  their  mother's 
and  the  radiance  of  their  father's  coun 
tenance.  The  seriousness  of  their  child 
hood,  in  which  they  had  unquestioningly 
foresworn  levities  as  being  innocent  for  the 
world's  people  but  yet  as  below  the  stand 
ard  set  for  the  tribe  of  Levi,  found  con 
tinuance  in  their  chosen  work  of  teaching. 
In  the  independence  of  solitary  business 
30 


THE    PASTOR 

women,  Lucretia  had  brought  to  the  sur 
face  the  bed-rock  of  her  father's  orthodoxy, 
while  Cornelia  chose  not  to  penetrate  below 
the  overlaid  charity;  but  under  the  home 
stead  roof  the  sisters  united  in  a  devotion, 
in  part  indulgent,  in  part  reverential,  for 
their  father. 

On  the  joyful  occasion  of  their  first  re 
union  at  the  supper-table,  Mrs.  Kirkham, 
with  the  lace  about  her  delicate  wrists 
pushed  back,  dexterously  manipulated  the 
cups,  while  Mr.  Kirkham,  at  regular  in 
tervals  recalled  to  the  mundane  platters 
before  him,  beamed  upon  his  daughters 
with  an  admiration  which  they  had  never 
received  from  a  suitor. 

"Was  there  any  mail  to-night,  Jesse?" 
asked  Mrs.  Kirkham,  raising  her  teacup  with 
curled  little  finger. 

He  clapped  his  hand  to  his  coat-pocket, 
and  as  a  rustle  of  paper  ensued,  rummaged 
within.  "I  remember  now,  Huntley  did 
give  me  something,"  he  said,  drawing  out 
a  long,  white  envelope;  "let  us  see — let  us 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

see.  Why,  very  complimentary,  I  am  sure, 
the  remarks  about  my  influence  and  suc 
cess,  and  all.  But  there's  some  mistake,  Cla 
rissa,  for  this  is  a  call.  I  don't  believe  you 
could  ever  guess  where — to  Bargietown." 

"  To  Bargietown?"  echoed  the  women,  join 
ing  in  a  laugh  at  the  manifest  absurdity. 
"Look  at  the  envelope  again — it  can't  be 
addressed  to  you.  Oh,  then,  it's  for  some 
other  Kirkham.  The  idea!" 

Over  beyond  the  hill  was  clustered  a 
decadent  settlement  of  what  had  once  been 
an  outpost  of  civilization.  The  founder 
had  been  one  Ferguson,  but  as  his  followers 
had  degenerated,  the  name  had  imitated 
their  downward  course  from  "Ferguson" 
into  "  Bargietown,"  and  the  local  title  for 
any  of  the  shabby,  shiftless,  disreputable 
figures  that  sometimes  slouched  over  the 
hill  and  among  the  worthy  folk  of  Putnam 
was  "a  Bargie."  In  the  girls'  childhood 
the  name  had  been  of  frightful  portent  ; 
now  it  connoted  all  manner  of  discourage 
ment,  squalor,  vice. 

32 


THE    PASTOR 

"  Yes,  of  course  it's  a  mistake.  Probably 
the  letter  was  intended  for  some  young 
fellow  just  out  of  the  seminary.  I  am  glad 
to  learn,  though,  that  a  mission  church  is  to 
be  established  there.  It  is  a  field — it  is  a 
field." 

"Well,  father,"  urged  Cornelia,  "you 
shake  this  letter  in  the  faces  of  that  old 
church  committee  that  you  meet  to-night, 
and  tell  them  that  if  you  can't  have  chairs 
for  the  Sunday-school  you'll  accept." 

Chuckling  at  her  sally,  her  father  folded 
the  sheet.  "  I  believe  I  am  supposed  to  lay 
any  matter  of  this  kind  before  them,"  he 
said,  "but  mine  are  such  generous-hearted 
people,  Cornelia,  I  don't  have  to  resort  to 
violence." 

That  evening  the  meeting  was  so  pro 
tracted  that  the  girls  had  braided  their 
mother's  soft  hair,  given  her  their  good 
night  kisses,  and  then  for  an  hour  or  more 
in  their  own  room  had  sat  swaying  in  their 
little,  old  rocking-chairs  before  they  heard 
their  father' s  step .  "How  slowly  he  walks , ' ' 
3  33 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

said  Lucretia ;  "  he  must  be  very  tired !  He 
has  put  all  his  strength  into  this  church." 

They  went  to  the  banister,  and  in  child 
ish  habit  leaned  over,  awaiting  him.  His 
hand  fumbled  with  the  lock.  "  If  it  hadn't 
been  the  church  committee" — Cornelia  sug 
gested.  The  door  swung  open  heavily,  and 
their  father,  with  bent  head,  entered  the 
hall.  "  Well,  father,  how  many  chairs?"  she 
called. 

He  raised  a  convulsed  face.  "  They — they 
advised  me  to  accept!"  he  cried,  piteously, 
stumbled  across  the  hall,  and  locked  him 
self  in  his  study. 

In  the  morning  the  daughters,  holding 
hands  as  when  they  were  timid  children, 
went  to  the  study,  as  the  custom  was,  for 
morning  prayers.  In  their  accustomed  arm 
chairs,  on  either  side  of  the  fireplace,  sat  the 
parents.  The  mother's  face  was  yet  dis 
torted  by  distressed,  resentful  weeping,  but 
the  father's,  haggard  though  it  was,  was 
serene. 

"Children,"  he  said,  "when  I  was  a  boy, 
34 


THE    PASTOR 

it  was  my  dream  to  go  as  a  missionary.  Yet 
that,  I  believed,  was  not  to  be.  But  now 
see,  in  my  old  age,  the  Lord  has  granted  me 
my  heart's  desire.  Last  night,  it  is  true, 
I  did  not  see  it  so.  My  heart  was  dis 
quieted  within  me.  And  even  now  this  is 
a  sore  affliction  for  your  mother.  We  have 
lived  in  this  house  forty  years,  and  we  had 
never  given  thought  to  leaving  it." 

Mrs.  Kirkham  sobbed  aloud.  "To  think 
of  our  living  in  a  shanty  in  Bargietown!" 
she  wailed. 

"We  shall  not  live  in  a  shanty,"  he 
soothed  her.  "  I  have  been  considering  the 
matter.  There  is  the  old  Ferguson  house. 
I  think  we  can  secure  that  without  any 
trouble." 

She  wrung  her  hands.  "A  black,  ram 
shackle  old  barn ;  no  garden ;  a  strip  of  field- 
lilies  in  front!  Has  it  come  to  this  that  I 
must  live  out  my  old  age  in  a  house  that  has 
never  been  painted?" 

"  No,"  cried  Cornelia,  with  a  fierce  tender 
ness  over  her  wounded  parents.  "  You  are 
35 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

to  come  with  us.  You  are  not  to  waste  an 
other  day  of  your  precious  lives  among  such 
ungrateful  people.  We  hate  them.  Lucre- 
tia  and  I  have  arranged  it  all.  You  are  to 
come  with  us." 

Mr.  Kirkham  shook  his  head  with  the  gen 
tle,  impregnable  decision  that  his  daughters 
knew.  "  It  is  the  Lord's  will,"  he  replied. 

"Jesse  Kirkham,  it  is  no  such  thing!" 
burst  out  the  wife.  "  It's  the  will  of  Dea 
con  Huntley  and  Deacon  Shepard  and  all 
those  mean  folks,  and  you  know  it." 

He  patted  her  hand.  "  As  George  White- 
field  used  to  say,"  he  quoted:  '"What  is 
a  little  scourge  of  the  tongue?  What  is  a 
thrusting  out  of  the  synagogue?'" 

In  the  dusk  of  a  late  summer  evening  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Kirkham  turned  the  smooth  key 
in  the  familiar  lock  for  the  last  time.  At 
the  stone  steps  let  into  the  wall  that  terraced 
their  lawn  from  the  street,  the  sorrel  horse 
was  waiting.  Mrs.  Kirkham,  her  airy  brisk 
ness  all  wilted  into  the  languor  of  an  old 
36 


THE    PASTOR 

woman,  was  helped  into  the  buggy.  Dis 
consolate,  she  looked  back  upon  the  house, 
white  behind  two  tapering  pines.  To  the 
right  stood  the  latticed  well-house.  At  the 
Ferguson  house  was  only  an  old  well-sweep. 
The  two  contrivances  epitomized  the  com 
parative  social  status  of  Putnam  and  of 
Bargietown. 

The  horse  started  down  the  road.  "It 
seems  they  have  secured  quite  an  eminent 
divine,  the  Reverend  Mr.  Hooper,  for  the 
pulpit  of  the  First  Church,"  said  Mr.  Kirk- 
ham.  "  He  is  a  town-bred  man,  not  a  farmer 
like  me.  He  has  taken  a  house  in  Putnam 
Place." 

Mrs.  Kirkham's  dainty,  pinched  face 
hardened,  and  she  held  up  her  chin  de 
fiantly.  "  Maybe  he  will  be  satisfied  with 
that  charge,"  said  she,  "but  it  was  no  place 
for  you,  Jesse.  See,  is  there  any  one  on  the 
Huntley  piazza"?  I — I  guess  I'd  better  not 
try  to  look  round." 

"No,  no  one  seems  to  be  out  to-night," 
he  replied,  "although  I  did  think  I  heard  a 
37 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

door  shut."  Indeed,  the  length  of  Putnam 
Street  was  singularly  deserted  on  the  even 
ing  that  the  decree  of  banishment  went  into 
effect. 

"They  needn't  be  afraid  of  a  scene," 
said  Mrs.  Kirkham.  "  I  guess  we're  ready 
enough  to  shake  the  dust  of  Putnam  off 
our  feet." 

"  It  is  all  for  the  best,  Clarissa,"  responded 
Mr.  Kirkham.  "  It  makes  me  feel  a  young 
man.  As  George  Whitefield  said,  'All  my 
work  is  to  begin  again.' " 

The  horse,  accustomed  to  no  guiding  rein, 
here  turned  his  slanting  course  into  the 
driveway  of  the  First  Church,  and,  with  the 
practice  of  long  experience,  stopped  with 
the  buggy -steps  opposite  the  stepping- 
block. 

For  an  instant  the  two  exiles  sat  silent. 
Then  Mrs.  Kirkham  buried  her  face  in  her 
gloved  hands,  while  great  tears  streamed 
down  between  the  black  kid  fingers.  "Gid- 
dap,"  Mr.  Kirkham  commanded,  leaning 
forward;  but  not  recognizing  the  familiar 
38 


THE    PASTOR 

voice  in  those  choked  tones,  the  horse  re 
mained  still,  and  the  pastor  was  reduced 
to  slapping  the  sorrel  back  with  the  buckled 
reins  in  order  to  persuade  him  to  turn  to  the 
road  that  led  on  past  the  church. 


THE     RITES 


VEN  a  stranger  could  have 
told  that  there  was  a  new 
comer  in  the  Place.  The 
casual  passer-by  along  Put 
nam  Street  would  have  re 
marked  that  before  the  old  Putnam  house 
the  fence-posts,  encircled  by  fresh  mould, 
had  been  newly  driven,  and  that  from  the 
cracks  of  the  flagged  walk  leading  to  the 
Greek  portico  all  the  weeds  had  been  pulled. 
On  the  grass  under  the  eaves  yet  lay  a  few 
yellow  shingles.  Their  presence  signified, 
according  to  the  Place  code,  that  the  "roof- 
men"  had  scarcely  finished  their  labors.  At 
their  departure,  if  the  new  -  comer,  Miss 
Luella  Quincy,  by  name,  was  one  whose 
methods  were  as  their  methods,  her  little 
40 


THE    RITES 

maid,  Susie,  would  come  forth  and  gather 
up  these  fragments  in  a  splint  basket,  there 
by  accomplishing  at  once  the  tidying  of  the 
yard,  the  kindling  for  the  morrow's  fire,  and 
the  proof  of  her  mistress's  adherence  to  a 
cherished  economic  theory.  It  was  with  no 
slight  relief,  therefore,  that  the  residents 
noted  Susie's  seasonable  appearance.  Evi 
dently  the  new-comer  was  one  whose  man 
ner  of  life  was  as  well  regulated  as  their  own, 
and  whose  conviction  that  a  lawn  is  en 
titled  to  as  scrupulous  attention  as  a  carpet, 
again  showed  a  favorable  similarity  to  that 
held  in  the  Place. 

As  the  Place  was  not  given  either  to 
moving  or  being  moved  into,  it  was  well  for 
Miss  Quincy  that  she,  as  first  cousin  of  Mrs. 
Bumpus — she  that  was  Caroline  Putnam — 
had  other  claim  to  the  Putnam  house  than 
mere  right  of  purchase.  In  the  years  that 
the  Greek  portico  had  sheltered  none  but 
sparrows,  the  neighbors  had  formed  the 
habit  of  considering  the  Place  as  made  up 
of  four  occupied  houses  and  one  unoccupied. 
41 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

Even  so,  the  Place  felt  no  gap  in  its  or 
ganization.  Thus  when  the  acceptedly  de 
serted  house  was  having  its  windows  washed 
and  its  lawn  brushed,  the  Place  had  to 
change  its  mind — a  process  requiring  de 
liberate  treatment.  Fortunately,  however, 
Miss  Luella  had  lived  the  forty  years  of  her 
life  in  a  neighboring  town,  similarly  par 
titioned  off  by  traditions  built  with  a 
solidity  of  construction  like  that  of  stone 
walls.  As  to  that,  she  knew  how  to  build 
little  stone -walls  of  her  own,  concerning 
people  who  baked  their  beans  with  molasses, 
or  wore  a  shade-hat  to  church,  or  whose 
great-grandmother's  portrait  did  not  hang 
over  a  mantel  -  shelf.  So  she  bided  her 
time  in  patience  until  she  should  be  as 
signed  her  position  in  the  Putnam  uni 
verse.  With  an  habitual  fondness  for  deal 
ing  in  technicalities  —  perhaps  a  heritage 
from  her  father,  whose  sermons  had  been 
famed  for  their  closeness  of  analysis — she 
reasoned  that  these  preliminary  ceremonies 
were  but  a  silent  recognition  of  underlying 
42 


THE    RITES 

fellowship.  Proceeding  by  the  analogy  of 
her  own  temperament,  she  was  assured  that 
the  inhabitants  of  the  Place,  if  secure  in 
the  knowledge  that  a  new-comer  was  of 
distinctly  another  order  than  themselves, 
would  extend  an  apparently  simple  cord 
iality  ;  but  that  this  cordiality,  although  lia 
ble  to  misconstruction  by  the  uninitiated, 
was  in  reality  the  sturdiest  of  barriers  to 
actual  intimacy.  As  to  acceptance  on  such 
a  basis,  Miss  Quincy  would  have  none  of  it. 
The  degree  that  she  had  attained  in  lineal 
ranks  was  too  advanced  for  that.  Was  not 
her  father  one  of  the  Stonybrook  Quincys, 
her  mother  one  of  the  Boston  Stedmans? 
In  honoring  her  the  Place  honored  itself. 
She  was  one  who  could  observe  understand- 
ingly — the  implication  of  each  move  would 
not  be  lost  upon  her.  Let  the  initiation  be 
of  a  ceremoniousness  befitting  her  position. 
It  was  with  a  tacit  understanding  of  some 
such  probation  that  the  Place  came  to  call. 
In  the  dimly  lighted  parlor,  Miss  Quincy 
held  receptions  of  ladies  in  "hair -lined" 
43 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

silks,  with  card  -  cases  held  in  delicately 
gloved  hands,  while  Susie,  flushed  with 
responsibility,  brought  in  trays  with  wa 
fers  and  "raspberry  shrub,"  prepared  with 
studious  solicitude  by  Miss  Quincy's  own 
hand,  recognized  by  her  with  as  studious 
nonchalance. 

Finally,  all  but  one  of  the  local  dignitaries 
had  paid  their  respects.  This  was  Judge 
Lattimer.  His  absence  was  explained  in 
elaborate  detail  by  his  sister  Miss  Helena. 
"Only  the  fact '.that  this  hunting-trip  was 
recommended  before  he  assumed  his  winter's 
responsibilities  had  prevented  him." 

"Quite  excusable — quite.  I  understand 
perfectly,"  broke  in  Miss  Quincy,  blandly. 
"My  uncle  Ethan  Stedman  was  a  lawyer. 
No  apologies  are  necessary,  I  assure  you." 

In  due  time  Miss  Quincy  returned  these 
amenities,  and,  in  corresponding  regalia,  sat 
in  other  dimly  lighted  parlors,  there  to  con 
verse  about  the  church- work,  and  the  late1 
fall,  and  the  curious  fact  that  her  second 
cousin  had  once  met  her  hostess's  brother- 
44 


THE    RITES 

v 

in-law.  Sometimes  there  would  be  an  in 
terval  after  her  entrance  before  her  hostess 
would  come  rustling  down  the  stairs.  The 
occasion  of  the  pause  would  be  obvious,  per 
haps,  in  the  aromatic  fragrance  of  peaches 
in  some  crucial  stage  of  being  either  on 
or  off  "the  boil";  but  although  the  pre 
serve  stood  neglected,  the  etiquette  towards 
the  new-comer  was  preserved  at  any  cost. 
Even  with  increasing  friendliness,  not  one 
of  the  ceremonies  was  abridged.  Nor  did 
Miss  Quincy,  who  could  interpret  this  punc 
tiliousness,  wish  it  otherwise.  That  is,  if 
ultimately  she  should  be  accounted  one  of 
themselves. 

As  the  fall  drew  on,  matters  other  than 
her  novitiate  occupied  her  mind.  Her 
cousins  the  Bumpuses — mother,  baby,  and 
father — were  to  spend  Thanksgiving  Day 
with  her,  and  busy  indeed  were  Miss  Quincy 
and  Susie  that  the  pantry  shelves  should 
be  duly  lined  with  all  that  custom  has 
prescribed. 

On  the  morning  before  the  festal  day 
45 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

she  was  down-stairs  before  even  the  little 
maid.  She  remembered  that  "Caroline's 
husband  "  had  a  fondness  for  certain  cookies, 
in  whose  cunning  manufacture  she  was  an 
adept.  And  a  husband  was  to  be  humored. 
She  was  working  away  in  her  spice- wafting 
kitchen  when,  glancing  from  the  window, 
she  saw  a  shabby  person  in  a  black  coat, 
faded  to  olive-green  across  the  shoulders, 
and  a  worn  felt  hat  slouched  over  his  face. 
As  he  came  up  the  flagged  walk  he  left  a 
trail  of  muddy  foot-prints.  From  his  hand 
dangled  a  brace  of  birds.  The  memory 
that  Caroline's  husband  was  fond  of  birds 
modified  her  indignation  even  when  the 
peddler  had  the  impertinence  to  ring  the 
front  door-bell.  She  flung  up  the  window. 
"Go  round  to  the  back  door,"  she  called. 
The  man  nodded,  and  was  standing  by  the 
water-barrel  when  she  opened  the  kitchen 
door.  "How  much?"  she  asked,  shrewdly. 
He  took  off  his  hat,  and,  smiling,  but 
without  a  word,  handed  her  the  birds. 
As  he  stood  there  the  light  fell  across  his 
46 


THE    RITES 

white  hair,  and  Miss  Quincy  realized  that 
the  original  of  the  portrait  in  the  Lattimer 
parlor,  which  had  been  formally  introduced 
to  her  by  Miss  Helena  as  "my  brother  the 
judge,"  stood  before  her. 

"I  mean,"  she  went  on,  catching  her 
breath,  "how  much  do  they  weigh,  Judge 
Lattimer?  They  are  such  unusually  large 
birds.  Your  trip  must  have  been  most  suc 
cessful — and  how  very  generous  you  are,  to 
share  its  results  with  a  new-comer  like  me ! 
Pray  come  in,  if  you  will  excuse  this  un 
avoidable  informality.  I  should  not,  of 
course,  have  asked  you  to  come  to  this  door, 
but  unfortunately  the  front  door  sticks  so 
fast  on  these  cold  mornings  that  it  is  quite 
impossible  to  move  it.  Such  things  will 
happen,  you  know,  in  a  house  closed  so 
long  as  this  has  been.  But  do  come  in,  and 
since  you  have  come  to  the  kitchen,  let  me 
give  you  a  cup  of  coffee.  I  am  sure  you 
must  be  fatigued  —  carrying  those  heavy 
birds." 

"You  are  very  good,  Miss  Quincy,"  said 
47 


the  judge,  noting  the  quaver  in  the  voice, 
the  childlike  distress  of  the  eager  face.  "I 
should  be  very  glad  of  a  cup." 

It  was  set  before  him  instantly,  in  gold- 
rimmed  cup  and  saucer,  while  Miss  Quincy, 
who,  culprit-like,  seemed  to  feel  that  de 
tection  and  disgrace  lay  in  silence,  praised 
the  birds  from  beaks  to  tail-feathers.  "  In 
deed,"  she  said,  as  the  judge,  sipping  his 
coffee,  smiled  benignantly  upon  her  anxious 
face,  "  it  is  you  who  are  good,  to  include  me 
among  those  to  whom  you  bring  trophies  of 
your  skill,  and,  indeed,"  she  hoped  that  she 
was  not  adding  boldness  to  her  other  sins, 
"  I  do  appreciate  it." 

Then,  as  he  swung  the  gate  behind  him, 
Miss  Quincy  sat  down  and  cried.  "  I  might 
just  as  well  make  up  my  mind  to  move 
again,"  she  sobbed,  "after  such  a  terrible 
thing  happening.  I'd  better  tell  Carrie  as 
soon  as  she  comes  that  I  can't  stay.  And 
the  carpets  fitted  the  parlors  so  nicely. 
Oh,  dear,  why  did  I  talk  so  to  Judge 
Lattimer?  I  haven't  told  such  stories  since 
48 


THE    RITES 

I  was  a  little  girl  and  told  my  mother  I'd 
been  studying  the  catechism  that  Sunday 
when  I'd  found  the  Arabian  Nights.  How 
wicked  I  am!  But  then" — with  an  un 
conscious  return  to  her  hereditary  casuis 
tries — "those  can't  be  called  lies,  because 
the  judge  understood  all  the  time  that  I  had 
thought  he  was  a  common  peddler.  Oh, 
dear,  how  foolish  I  was.  And  he's  a  man, 
and  this  might  seem  funny  to  a  man.  I've 
never  had  such  a  nice  china  closet  before, 
and  I've  got  to  leave  it.  I'll  have  to  go 
now,  before  I've  learned  whether  I  belong 
here  or  not.  Oh,  dear,  I  don't  know  even 
whether  those  rose-bushes  by  the  front 
porch  bear  red  or  white  roses,  and  I've 
banked  them  up  so  carefully." 

There  was  a  knock  at  the  kitchen  door. 

Miss  Quincy  suppressed  all  signs  of  emo 
tion  and  lifted  the  latch.  There  stood  Miss 
Helena,  with  a  shawl  thrown  over  her  scal 
loped  flannel  dressing-sacque.  In  her  hand 
she  held  an  empty  china  cup.  "  Will  you 
excuse  me,"  she  asked,  "for  running  across 
4  49 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

the  lawn  instead  of  coming  by  the  path,  and 
for  coming  to  this  door  instead  of  to  the 
front?  But  I'm  in  great  haste,  and  have 
come  to  ask  you  to  do  me  a  neighborly 
office.  My  brother  came  home  unexpect 
edly  last  evening  and  got  himself  a  late 
lunch,  and  left  the  butter  in  the  dining- 
room,  where  it  melted,  so  that  there  isn't 
any  fit  to  put  on  the  table.  My  brother 
spoke  of  the  refreshing  cup  of  coffee  you 
had  given  him,  so  I  knew  that  I  should  find 
you  up,  and  ran  here  instead  of  to  another 
neighbor.  Oh,  that's  more  than  necessary, 
Miss  Quincy,  thank  you  so  much.  I  hope 
you  will  give  me  the  chance  to  do  you  a 
service  soon.  But  I'm  afraid  you're  a 
much  better  housekeeper  than  I.  Good- 
morning." 

To  one  who  did  not  read  the  cipher  of  the 
Place  code,  the  import  of  this  visit  might 
be  mystical;  not  so  to  Miss  Quincy.  The 
informality  of  the  costume,  the  approach, 
the  request,  the  recurrence  of  the  word 
"neighbor" — why,  this  call  was  the  final 
5° 


THE    RITES 

ceremony  of  her  initiation.     She  "belong 
ed"  in  Putnam  Place. 

But  what  were  the  judge's  words,  she 
wondered,  at  whose  sound  the  stone-walls 
of  reserve  had  fallen  prostrate?  She  did 
not  learn  until  years  afterwards,  when,  with 
her  arms  laden  with  the  white  roses  that 
grew  by  the  porch,  she  went  to  the  Lattimer 
house  to  make  lovelier  the  room  where  the 
funeral  services  of  the  judge  were  to  be 
read.  Miss  Helena,  with  shaking  fingers 
and  quivering  lips,  tried  to  help  her  with 
the  flowers  and  to  thank  her,  with  all  the 
urbanity  that  was  the  tradition  of  the  fam 
ily.  "I  am  glad  you  brought  these,"  she 
said,  "because  my  brother  always  held  you 
in  high  esteem  from  the  first  time  he  met 
you.  I  remember  it  so  well,  the  day  before 
Thanksgiving,  so  many  years  ago.  When 
he  returned  he  said :  '  Miss  Quincy  has  as 
true  instincts  of  a  gentlewoman  as  if  she 
had  been  born  in  the  Place ;  I  think  it  would 
gratify  her  if  you  and  the  other  neighbors 
showed  that  you  appreciated  the  fact;  I 
51 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

know  it  would  gratify  me.'  Yes,  my  dear, 
those  were  his  words.  And  of  course  from 
that  time  we  were  all  so  glad  to  regard  you 
as  one  of  ourselves,  not  only  because  we  had 
admired  you  from  the  first,  but  because  we 
all  had  such  great  respect  for  his  opinion. 
He  was  always  kind  to  all.  But  he  was 
never  careless  in  his  commendation.  Yet 
that  was  what  he  said : '  Miss  Quincy  has  the 
instinct  of  a  true  gentlewoman.'  Yes,  may 
be  I  would  better  let  you  lift  that  vase.  My 
hands  do  not  seem  so  very  steady.  Ah,  at 
times  like  these,  what  should  we  do  without 
our  neighbors?" 


THE    TRADITION 


HE  April  air  was  thin,  as  if 
all  the  elements  which  made 
up  its  fulness  could  not  be 
gathered  until  it  had  touched 
meadow-grass  and  full-leaved 
trees;  and  as  yet  it  had  felt  only  gray- 
specked,  waning  snowdrifts  and  branches 
lightly  veiled  in  budding  green.  A  chill 
seemed  to  emanate  from  the  atmosphere's 
quality  of  attenuation  rather  than  from 
any  matter  of  temperature. 

Within  the  Hale  house  a  spirit  of  per 
petual  April  reigned.  In  Madam  Hale's  old 
age  there  was  the  same  ethereal  quality 
which  had  distinguished  her  girlhood;  and 
apparently  influenced  by  the  fine-drawn 
force  of  will  inherent  in  such  as  she,  the 
53 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

very  house  and  its  furnishings  had  learned 
to  combine  with  colonial  solidity  a  genteel 
fragility.  The  "up -stairs  sitting-room," 
where  the  generations  of  Hale  women  were 
in  the  habit  of  passing  the  greater  part  of 
their  waking  hours,  showed  forth  the  same 
cool  delicacy  with  which  it  had  become  a 
matter  of  family  pride  to  meet  all  emer 
gencies  of  life.  The  sunlight  shone  through 
the  panes  in  oblongs  upon  the  pale  carpet, 
patterned  in  slender  palm-leaves.  The  fire 
danced  behind  andirons  with  heads  of  point 
ed  flame,  and  threw  flashes  reflected  in  the 
tall  oval  of  the  mirror  above  the  spindle- 
legged  mahogany  table.  Even  the  high 
boy  and  the  chest  achieved  an  effect  of 
massiveness  to  which  bulkiness  had  been 
subordinated. 

The  Hale  daughters  were  many,  and  some 
were  fair  and  some  were  plain.  But  in 
each  there  was  a  slenderness  of  ankle,  a 
length  of  taper  finger,  an  accuracy  of 
aquiline  profile.  The  trait  of  a  vigorous 
fragility  "ran  in  the  family."  Impelled 
54 


THE   TRADITION 

by  the  distinction  of  this  birthright,  the 
Hales  shared  an  unvoiced  sentiment  of 
disparagement  towards  any  so  grossly  in 
dolent  as  to  be  fat  or  clumsy  or  heavy- 
featured,  when  a  sprightly  elegance  was  so 
easy  of  attainment. 

While  the  up-stairs  sitting-room  always 
provided  a  meeting-place,  the  contribution 
to  the  missionary  box  added  a  common  oc 
cupation.  This  year  the  Hale's  offering  was 
to  be  a  "comforter,"  and  the  daughters  of 
the  house  were  gathered  about  a  quilting 
frame,  whereon  lay  stretched  a  material 
striped  in  dove  color  and  white,  ready  to  be 
fashioned  into  a  bed-covering  for  some 
zealous  exile  in  "the  far  West."  Cold  of 
heart  and  slow  of  mind  would  he  be  indeed 
if  that  painstakingly  stitched  square  did 
not  recall  the  sound  of  sibilant  elms,  the 
fragance  of  box,  the  keen-cut  shadows  of 
granite  ledges  in  pasture  -  lands,  the  habit 
of  wild  heart-throbs  stilled  to  passionate 
submission  that  the  demeanor  of  outward 
calm  might  be  unrippled. 
55 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

Miss  Martha  and  Miss  Eunice,  blue-eyed 
like  their  mother,  presided  at  the  frame's 
head  and  foot.  "Joshua's  wife,"  madam's 
daughter-in-law,  and  little  Martha,  the 
granddaughter  —  for  family  connections 
were  always  reckoned  from  madam— were 
at  the  sides.  Mrs.  Joshua  also  was  slim 
and  dainty.  Both  the  "Hale  boys,"  when 
they  had  gone  forth  into  the  world,  had 
taken  unto  themselves  wives  whose  phy 
sique  preserved  the  family  tradition.  Lit 
tle  Martha  illustrated  the  same  type  in 
youth  which  her  aunts  continued  in  ma 
turity,  and  which  the  grandmother  pre 
sented  in  exquisite  consummation. 

Madam  Hale,  with  all  the  majesty  of  a 
long  life  of  manifold  duties,  each  performed 
with  a  regal  efficiency  and  grace,  was  now 
enthroned  in  her  rocking-chair,  seemingly 
a  frail  affair,  yet  one  which  had  sufficed 
through  the  days  when  sturdy  babies  had 
lain  in  her  bosom  or  had  played  at  her 
knees.  Now  that  her  children  were  grown 
and  had  scattered,  her  undisputed  empire 
56 


THE    TRADITION 

had  widened;  now  that  her  sceptre  was 
wielded  only  in  matters  of  moment,  her 
sway  was  the  more  revered.  As  she  watch 
ed  her  daughters  at  their  gentle  task,  her 
face  was  serene  with  the  sweet  interpreta 
tion  of  a  lifetime.  In  her  hand — an  au 
thoritative  and  ecclesiastical  hand,  for  all 
its  motherliness — she  held  a  turkey-feather 
fan,  which  served  now  as  a  fire-screen,  now 
as  a  wand  to  accent  the  grave  gestures  with 
which  she  accompanied  her  speech. 

The  three  women  at  the  quilt  stitched 
and  talked.  The  murmur  of  their  low,  af 
fectionate  voices  had  always  been  to  the 
child  one  of  the  accessories  of  her  grand 
mother's  home,  like  the  elm  at  the  gate,  the 
trellis  at  the  door;  but  it  never  occurred  to 
her  to  listen.  Their  anecdotes,  jotted  down 
from  village  vicissitudes,  which  to  them 
had  been  as  a  long  novel  with  slow-turning 
pages,  were  to  her  mind  concerned  with 
indistinguishable  characters  engaged  in  in 
consequent  and  insignificant  pursuits.  Ac 
cording  to  little  Martha,  "nothing  ever 
57 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

happened,"  yet  to  these  marvellous  grown 
up  people,  whose  supply  of  reminiscence 
seemed  as  inexhaustible  as  that  of  the 
katydids  on  the  big  elm,  the  days  were  so 
crammed  with  incident  that  the  pages  of 
memory  were  written  close  and  full.  It 
was  only  when  her  grandmother's  voice, 
with  its  old-time  precision  of  enunciation, 
tided  the  current  of  their  talk  that  little 
Martha  listened. 

Owing  to  the  encumbrance  of  a  thimble, 
the  child  was  progressing  at  an  uninterest 
ingly  slow  pace  in  her  stitching.  The  cool, 
rarefied  breeze  that  bulged  the  muslin  win 
dow-curtains  at  her  side  was  very  sweet. 
"Oh,  dear  me!"  said  Martha,  and  yawned 
in  utter  boredom.  On  principle  she  was  a 
"pretty  behaved  "  child;  but,  from  her 
point  of  view,  her  voice  would  be  as  liable 
to  break  the  thread  of  the  legend  of  the 
Bennett  who  married  an  Allen  as  to  in 
terrupt  the  rustle  of  the  sparsely  clad  elm 
twigs. 

"Martha!"  reproved  her  mother. 
58 


THE    TRADITION 

"The  child  can't  be  interested  in  what 
you  girls  are  saying,"  explained  the  grand 
mother,  who  spoke  for  the  mute  from  baby 
hood  to  old  age,  "  and  she's  been  sewing  very 
nicely,  I'm  sure.  Run  down,  dear,  to  the 
library.  Open  the  bookcase  with  the  lat 
ticed  doors,  and  pick  out  some  pretty  book 
that  your  father  used  to  be  fond  of.  You 
might  read  aloud  to  us,  if  you  like." 

Martha  skipped  nimbly  on  the  errand  of 
her  own  mercy,  followed  by  the  grand 
mother's  fond  eyes.  What  if  son  Joshua's 
child  had  been  an  awkward,  dumpy  little 
girl  ?  It  was  too  annoying  to  contemplate ; 
and  needless  as  well,  when  Martha,  with 
her  lithe  figure,  her  sensitive  nostril,  and 
clean-cut  chin,  so  plainly  "favored"  son 
Joshua.  In  the  child's  absence,  Miss  Mar 
tha  hastened  to  close  the  anecdote  under 
consideration,  and  little  Martha  returned 
only  in  time  for  the  head-shakings  at  the 
conclusion. 

"  I  brought  this  book,  grandmother,"  said 
she,  "because  it  has  a  frontispiece.  And 
59 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

the  name  sounds  as  if  the  story  were  nice 
and  strange — The  Scarlet  Letter." 

"  How  did  that  book  get  into  that  case?" 
exclaimed  Miss  Martha.  "  I  remember  now 
— some  scattered  books  of  your  uncle  Rich 
ard's  have  been  slipped  in  there.  Mattie, 
my  dear,  that  isn't  a  book  for  little  girls." 

"Nor  for  big  girls,  either,  I  think,"  re 
marked  Mrs.  Joshua.  "  Take  it  right  back, 
child." 

"There  are  some  blue  books  with  gilt 
lettering,"  added  Miss  Eunice,  encouraging 
ly,  "by  Miss  Yonge,  on  the  second  shelf, 
that  are  nice." 

"And  this,"  declared  Mrs.  Joshua,  with 
the  authority  of  matrimony,  "is  not  nice." 

"Oh,  Mary,  how  can  you  say  so?"  pro 
tested  Miss  Eunice,  "when  it  is  so — so — I 
can't  express  it,  but  it  might  have  been 
written  by  a  woman." 

"As  a  married — "  began  Mrs.  Joshua. 

"  What  I  object  to,"  broke  in  Miss  Martha, 
by  right  of  seniority,  "is  not  the  scenes 
themselves,  but  the  fact  that  they're  laid  in 
60 


THE    TRADITION 

New  England.  If  only  the  characters  were 
supposed  to  have  lived  somewhere  else." 

"My  dears,"  inquired  madam,  "are  you 
speaking  of  the  book  by  Mr.  Hawthorne, 
who  at  one  time  was  in  the  Salem  custom 
house?" 

"Yes,  mother." 

"  I  remember  the  story,"  she  said,  dream 
ily,  with  a  far-away  look,  as  if  her  eyes  were 
focused  upon  retreated  years.  Then  she 
turned  briskly  to  Mattie.  "  My  dear,"  said 
she,  "when  I  was  a  child  my  mother  used 
to  tell  me  that  if  I'd  look  hard  enough 
among  the  snow-drops  I  should  find  one 
flower  touched  with  pink,  as  if  it  were  blush 
ing.  Suppose  you  go  and  see  if  you  can't 
find  one  this  morning." 

The  child  twirled  on  one  foot.  She  real 
ized  that  the  murmurous  stream  of  con 
versation  would  now  be  stemmed  by  a  rill, 
untroubled  by  tributaries;  but  she  rec 
ognized  that  the  dismissal,  for  all  its  gentle 
ness,  was  irrevocable.  She  laid  down  the 
book  and  picked  up  her  shade-hat  philo- 
61 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

sophically.  "  Well,  maybe  some  day  Z'll  be 
grown  up  enough  to  send  little  girls  out  of 
the  room,"  she  remarked  from  the  door 
way. 

"Martha!"  reproved  her  mother.  But 
the  grandmother  laughed  with  a  dainty 
mischief,  holding,  with  an  inimitable  grace, 
the  fan  as  a  shield. 

"What  you  girls  have  been  saying  has 
reminded  me  of  an  old,  old  story,"  she 
began.  "  I  have  never  spoken  of  it  before 
to  my  children.  I  should  not  tell  it  even 
now  if  it  would  be  carried  farther  than  this 
room.  I  should  not  tell  it  at  all  if  it  could 
reveal  more  than  I  choose.  Nor  do  I  tell 
it  idly.  You  girls  are  now  old  enough" — 
she  concluded  her  preface — "  to  understand 
something  of  the  experiences  which  have 
gone  to  make  up  the  characters  of  our 
people  in  New  England — yes,  even  in  our 
own  town  of  Putnam. 

"  It  was  when  I  was  a  little  girl  of  Mattie's 
age,  in  my  twelfth  year,  I  remember;  for 
that  year  the  bell  was  put  into  the  meeting- 
62 


THE    TRADITION 

house  steeple,  and  a  few  box-pews  had  been 
built — for  the  gentry,  as  they  were  called, 
although  all  were  equal  in  the  sight  of  God. 
We  had  been  greatly  prospered  in  that 
year,  both  in  temporal  and  in  spiritual 
matters.  The  parish  was  to  the  pastor — 
a  saintly  man,  Dr.  Brainerd  by  name — as 
the  apple  of  his  eye. 

"  In  those  days  there  was  a  cottage  across 
the  roadway  from  my  home.  In  it  there 
lived  a  God-fearing  man,  but  much  away 
from  home,  for  he  was  one  of  those  who  go 
down  to  the  sea  in  ships.  We  will  call  him 
the  Captain.  His  wife  was  a  woman  af 
flicted  with  many  infirmities.  Her  life  held 
but  little  cheer  and  could  give  but  little  out. 
Their  only  child  was  a  daughter  enough 
older  than  I  to  seem  a  woman  grown.  Her 
name — suppose  that  for  this  morning  we 
call  her  Eve.  Except  for  Eve's  nurse,  a 
woman  gone  nearly  blind  with  great  age, 
the  mother  and  daughter  were  alone  in  the 
cottage  for  the  greater  part  of  each  year. 
Sometimes  in  the  winters  a  little  boy,  Eve's 
63 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

own  cousin,  but  more  nearly  of  my  age, 
would  stay  with  them  that  he  might  attend 
the  village  school.  He  and  I  were  famous 
playmates,  and  thus  I  went  often  to  the 
Captain's  house.  Such  a  strange  house, 
with  wonderful  ivory  carvings  on  the  yel 
low-painted  mantel-shelf,  and  a  cloth  stiff 
with  gold  thread  on  the  claw-footed  table. 
As  I  look  back  on  it  now  I  can  see  that  the 
life  must  have  been  somewhat  lonely  for 
Eve,  and  perhaps  rather  hard,  for  her  poor 
mother  was  querulous,  and  the  old  nurse 
could  do  little  in  the  kitchen  and  dairy. 
There  was  always  the  spinning,  too  —  Eve 
was  among  the  most  skilful  with  her  wheel. 
But  in  those  days  we  did  not  think  of  such 
a  life  as  one  of  hardship,  for  we  were  none  of 
us  pleasure-seekers  or  ease-lovers,  and  should 
have  deemed  any  one  light  -  minded  upon 
whose  lips  were  such  phrases  of  discontent 
as  we  hear  to-day.  That  was  not  the  man 
ner  of  speech  among  us. 

"  By  most,  Eve  was  not  accounted  beauti 
ful,  being  so  white.     Her  father,  too,  of  late 
64 


THE   TRADITION 

years — ah,  me,  they  will  be  a  century  old 
when  Mattie  is  grown — had  met  with  re 
verses.  So  while  there  were  pink-cheeked 
maidens  with  gold  beads  round  their  throats 
behind  other  doorways,  there  came  few 
enough  young  men  rapping  at  the  Captain's 
daughter's  door.  But  to  me  Eve  was  very 
beautiful.  She  was  slight,  and  walked  as  if 
the  wind  were  blowing  her  on.  I  used  to 
stop  my  play  with  her  little  cousin  to  watch 
her  as  she  went  up  to  the  sheep  pasture, 
following  the  path  above  the  bowlders — the 
path  so  narrow  that  it  was  almost  lost  when 
the  wind  blew  the  long  grasses  across  it. 
I  thought  that  her  hair  was  the  color  of  the 
shining,  light  -  brown  spears,  I  remember ; 
and  as  she  stood  on  the  crest  of  the  hill  I 
wished  that  she  might  have  a  gown  of  the 
blue  like  the  far-away  mountain  which  lay 
as  if  just  below  her  throat.  As  I  look  back 
on  it  now,  it  is  so  easy  to  understand,  but 
then  it  seemed  so  strange.  .  .  .  Eunice,  my 
dear,  would  you  be  willing  to  dust  the  parlor 
mantel-piece  ?  Nora  is  very  busy  this  morn- 
s  6S 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

ing,  and  the  Hoopers  are  coming  to  tea  this 
afternoon." 

With  unaffected  acquiescence,  Miss  Eu 
nice  left  the  room.  She  was  as  incurious 
concerning  unfamiliar  phases  of  life  as  in 
the  old  academy  days  concerning  courses 
of  study  which  she  did  not  "  take." 

Unconsciously  dropping  her  voice,  Madam 
Hale  continued:  "After  her  mother's  death 
Eve  lived  on  alone  with  the  blind  old  nurse. 
That  may  seem  strange  to  you,  but  you  must 
remember  that  in  those  days  she  was  ac 
counted  a  woman,  not  a  girl.  She  was  quite 
seventeen. 

"  One  Saturday  evening — it  was  in  April, 
I  remember,  a  day  like  to-day,  and  I  had 
been  playing  with  the  snow-drops  and 
crocuses,  just  as  Mattie  is  now.  It  was  so 
good  to  see  the  dear  spring  flowers  that  I 
had  run  out  again  after  supper.  I  was  still 
hunting  for  a  snow-drop  that  blushed  when 
my  mother  called  me  in.  '  There  are  three 
stars  in  the  sky,'  she  said.  So  the  Sabbath 
had  begun.  I  was  sitting  on  the  door-sill, 
66 


THE    TRADITION 

for  I  was  loath  to  come  in,  and  my  mother 
was  ever  over-indulgent,  when  I  saw  the 
Captain  cross  the  road  to  our  gate.  No  one 
knew  better  than  he  the  trick  of  the  latch, 
for  he  had  made  it  himself — the  men  of  the 
neighborhood  were  always  ready  with  ser 
vices  for  my  widowed  mother.  I  ran  down 
the  path,  for  his  fingers  fumbled  with  the 
catch.  He  gave  me  no  greeting  but,  'Tell 
your  mother  I  must  see  her.' 

"'Captain,  I  am  rejoiced  at  your  early 
return.  We  dared  not  expect  you  for 
many  months  yet.  Your  voyage  must  have 
been  prospered,'  said  my  mother  from  the 
doorway. 

"His  face  was  so  stiff  and  seamed  with 
weather  that  I  marvelled  that  it  could  thus 
alter  all  its  lines  before  he  hid  it  in  his 
hands  —  knotted  hands,  with  the  flag  tat 
tooed  on  the  right  and  the  anchor  on  the 
left.  '  My  God,  my  God !'  he  cried. 

" '  It  is  your  bedtime,  Mattie,'  my  mother 
told  me,  as  she  helped  the  Captain  up  the 
path  as  if  he  were  an  old  man.  I  remember 
67 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

wondering  at  that.  Until  that  night  he 
had  never  seemed  older  than  any  one  else 
who  was  grown  up. 

"  From  my  room  window  I  watched  the 
sky  deepen  and  the  stars  come  out  like 
white  blossoms  among  the  trees.  All  the 
while  in  the  room  below  I  heard  voices.  The 
Captain's  was  so  broken  that  I  thought 
he  must  have  hurt  himself  and  was  in  pain ; 
but  I  was  not  frightened,  because  I  knew 
that  my  mother  could  do  everything.  At 
one  time  his  voice  was  raised  as  if  in  anger, 
and  I  heard  the  great  mahogany  table 
shake  beneath  his  fist  and  the  crash  and 
jingle  of  china  fallen  to  the  floor.  Then 
his  voice  dropped,  and  I  heard  only  my 
mother's.  I  knew  from  the  cadence  that 
she  was  praying.  I  fell  asleep  listening  to 
the  sound.  In  those  days  I  thought  of  her 
only  as  my  mother;  now  I  know  her  as  a 
pearl  among  women. 

"The  next  morning  I  found  that  a  great 
platter — you  know  its  mate  now — had  been 
jarred  from  its  shelf.  The  pieces  had  been 
68 


THE   TRADITION 

left  where  they  had  fallen,  as  if  it  were  a 
matter  of  little  moment.  '  Mother,'  I  cried, 
'  your  beautiful  platter ;  it  is  broken !'  But 
she  said,  'This  is  no  time  to  lament  trifles. 
Oh,  my  daughter,  my  little  daughter ! '  .  .  . 
Martha,  would  you  be  so  good  as  to  make 
the  custard  for  dinner  to-day?  Susan  has 
the  cake  on  hand,  and  to  my  thinking  no 
one  can  flavor  the  custard  as  you  can." 

With  a  humorous  glance  of  comprehen 
sion,  Miss  Martha  put  aside  her  thimble. 
"Certainly,  mother,"  she  replied,  as  with 
unquestioning  obedience  mingling  with  fond 
pride  in  the  maternal  authority  she  went 
from  the  room. 

The  two  mothers  were  left  together. 
Joshua's  wife  laid  down  her  needle.  "You 
mean?"  she  asked,  as  she  drew  her  chair 
to  the  side  of  madam's. 

"Yes,  after  his  year's  voyage  he  had 
come  back  to  find  his  wife  dead,  his  daugh 
ter" — for  all  the  philosophic  acquiescence 
of  great  age,  madam  clasped  her  hands  in 
distress.  "  No  one  in  the  parish  had  known. 
69 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

Eve  had  dwelt  and  spun  there  alone.  It 
came  out  afterwards  that  she  had  meant  to 
drown  herself  before  her  father's  return.  She 
had  made  preparations  for  her  death  as 
simple-mindedly  as  for  a  bridal.  And  she 
was  only  five  years  older  than  Mattie. 

"  One  morning  in  the  early  dawn  I  woke 
to  see  my  mother  coming  back  to  our 
house,  her  face  under  her  cloak  as  white  as 
the  snow -drops  under  the  eaves.  I  re 
member  that  while  I  ran  to  build  the  fire 
and  set  the  kettle  on,  she  knelt  at  the 
kitchen  door-sill.  I  did  not  understand  it 
then.  How  plain  it  is  now. 

"So  our  life  went  on.  I  was  told  that 
I  must  not  speak  of  Eve.  The  time  for  the 
sailing  of  the  Captain's  vessel  was  drawing 
on.  I  passed  my  twelfth  birthday. 

"Then  one  Sunday,  instead  of  pro 
nouncing  the  benediction,  our  pastor  leaned 
upon  the  open  Bible  and  said  that  there  was 
a  grievous  matter  to  lay  before  us.  The 
children  under  twelve  years  of  age  and 
all  those  not  communicants  were  dismissed. 
70 


THE    TRADITION 

My  mother  would  have  had  me  go,  but  when 
I  reminded  her  of  my  age  she  said  no  more, 
but  took  my  hand.  I  did  not  think  of  it 
then,  but  I  suppose  I  may  have  been  the 
youngest  person  left  in  that  congregation. 
"Of  course  I  could  not  understand  what 
Dr.  Brainerd  meant  by  'unspeakably  vile' 
and  ' expiation'  and  ' open  confession.'  The 
box-pews  were  so  high  that  I  saw — only  for 
the  instant  as  she  passed  our  pew  door — 
Eve  as  she  went  up  the  aisle  to  the  pulpit, 
carrying  in  her  arms  a  little  dark-eyed  baby. 
Then  as  Dr.  Brainerd  pronounced  the  short 
sentences,  with  Eve  following  as  if  she  were 
repeating  a  lesson,  I  remember  seeing  only 
the  graining  of  the  boards  of  our  pew,  the 
calf -bound  Bible  with  its  back  so  warped 
that  it  always  lay  half  open,  and  the 
scorched  marks  on  the  floor  made  by  the 
foot-stoves  during  the  winter-time.  After 
wards  I  found  that  I  remembered  a  few 
of  the  phrases,  not  as  measured  by  Dr. 
Brainerd,  but  as  repeated  in  Eve's  trem 
bling  tones.  I  can  recall  now : '  Before  the 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

assembled  congregation — as  I  hope  to  find 
mercy — I,  the  greatest  of  sinners — since,  out 
of  your  deep  compassion — and  to  live 
henceforth  before  God  and  man.'  But  at 
the  time  I  felt  only  that  my  beautiful  Eve 
was  at  fault.  Child  that  I  was,  I  thought 
of  the  little  path  above  the  bowlders,  as  if 
Eve  had  strayed  from  that,  hidden  as  it  was 
by  the  slanted  brown  grasses. 

"When  Eve  passed  our  pew  on  her  way 
back  to  the  church  door,  she  had  grown  so 
much  older  that  I  looked  about  to  see  if, 
with  others,  too,  years  had  passed  while  she 
had  stood  at  the  foot  of  the  pulpit  stairs, 
facing  the  congregation.  But  no  one  else 
looked  about.  They  sat  with  eyes  that 
seemed  blindfolded  by  the  pew  walls.  That 
afternoon  I  asked  my  mother  where  was  the 
Captain.  She  told  me  that  on  the  night 
before  a  messenger  had  summoned  him  to 
Boston,  for  the  company  had  ordered  that 
the  vessel  sail  at  once.  It  was  a  two  years' 
cruise." 

Miss  Martha  appeared  on  the  threshold. 
72 


THE    TRADITION 

"May  I  come  in?"  she  asked,  with  a  meek 
ness  touched  with  a  dry  humor  which  ren 
dered  it  none  the  less  deferential. 

"Yes,  my  child,"  assented  Madam  Hale, 
who  saw  nothing  save  decorum  in  the  per 
mission. 

"The  child — how  was  he  baptized?"  ask 
ed  Mrs.  Joshua. 

"  '  In  the  name  of  the  Father  and  of  the 
Son  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,' "  repeated 
madam,  with  devoutly  folded  hands.  "  The 
child  was  a  girl." 

"Mother,"  pursued  Mrs.  Joshua,  "what 
was  her  name?" 

"  I  am  coming  to  that,  Mary.  When  the 
church  door  was  shut  behind  Eve,  Dr. 
Brainerd  broke  the  silence  by  an  admoni 
tion  which  we  all,  young  and  old,  have  re 
spected.  Had  it  not  been  so,  my  daughter, 
you  would  have  no  need  to  ask  the  name. 
Perhaps,  this  very  morning — still,  told  as  I 
tell  it,  I  am  persuaded  that  I  am  keeping 
the  spirit  of  the  law.  In  our  waywardness 
we  were  often  deaf  to  his  exhortations,  but 
73 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

that  morning  we  barkened  with  ears  that 
hear.  He  reminded  us  that  in  all  that 
congregation  the  babe  then  baptized  might 
have  the  greatest  number  of  years  allotted 
yet  to  live.  'Wherefore,'  he  said,  'take 
heed  that  evil  reports  of  your  own  breed 
ing  do  not  live  after  you.  Let  the  sin  and 
the  shame  which  have  been  revealed  unto 
you  this  day  within  the  sanctuary  here  be 
sealed,  a  solemn  covenant  between  us  for 
ever.  My  little  flock ' ' ' — the  old  voice  thrill 
ed  as  those  tense  moments  were  recalled — 
'"I  would  have  rendered  you  back,  an  ac 
ceptable  sacrifice,  and  see,  "The  beauty  of 
Israel  is  slain  upon  the  high  places."  It 
may  be  that  this  calamity  has  come  upon  us 
because  of  my  ungodly  joy  in  our  fair  re 
pute.  But  it  is  blemished,  I  am  chastened. 
Yet  if  in  my  life  and  in  my  works  among 
you  I  have  found  any  favor,  show  it,  my 
children,  in  answer  to  my  prayers  that  you 
may  blot  out  all  memories  of  this  evil  day. 
If  then  I  have  won  any  love  from  your 
hearts,  "Tell  it  not  in  Gath,  publish  it  not 
74 


THE   TRADITION 

in  the  streets  of  Askalon,  lest  the  daughters 
of  the  Philistines  rejoice,  lest  the  daughters 
of  the  uncircumcised  triumph."  Let  us,'  he 
said,  'read  the  twenty-second  psalm." 

"Mother,"  asked  Mrs.  Joshua,  "do  you 
mean  that  after  that  morning  that  strange 
service  was  never  spoken  of?" 

"  Dr.  Brainerd  said, '  Let  us  have  no  tale 
bearers  going  up  and  down  among  us,'" 
quoted  madam. 

"But  Eve?" 

"  She  lived  on  in  her  father's  house.  What 
else  was  there  for  her  to  do?  She  never 
went  beyond  the  garden  palings,  except  to 
church,  and  then  she  slipped  in  among  the 
servants'  benches  at  the  rear,  and  was  away 
before  we  had  opened  the  pew  doors.  My 
mother  and  a  few  others  of  like  mind  did 
what  they  could  to  comfort,  and  others 
did  what  they  could  to  afflict  her,  but  there 
was  little  enough  that  any  one  could  do. 
She  was  dying." 

"Dying?  Poor  little  Eve!"  said  Miss 
Martha. 

75 


"Yes.  When  the  Captain  came  back  he 
found  a  second  grave." 

"And  the  child— did  she  die?" 

"  No,  indeed.  She  was  cared  for  by  con 
nections  of  the  Captain's.  They  lived  far 
out  in  the  country,  but  my  mother  would 
sometimes  journey  there  to  see  that  all  was 
well.  You  may  remember  that  I  spoke  of 
Eve's  little  cousin  who  was  a  playmate  of 
mine?  It  was  his  family  that  took  in  the 
child  as  one  of  their  own.  Except  in  the 
winter,  my  mother  would  take  me  with  her, 
so  it  happened  that  as  we  grew  up  my  old 
playmate  and  I  did  not  forget  each  other." 

Miss  Eunice  reappeared  and  docilely  took 
up  her  needle.  "  Mother,"  she  said,  "  I  can 
not  remember  ever  having  heard  before  that 
there  was  a  cottage  across  the  street  from 
grandmother's  old  home." 

"Perhaps  no  one  in  all  Putnam  re 
members  it,"  madam  replied;  "it  was  torn 
down  while  I  was  a  child." 

"But  the  church  records?"  pursued  Mrs. 
Joshua. 

76 


THE    TRADITION 

"Lost  on  the  night  of  the  fire." 

"  But  the  name  that  the  child  bore?"  Mrs. 
Joshua  insisted. 

Madam  Hale  smiled  inscrutably.  "  Who 
knows?"  she  asked. 

"Why,  you  do,  mother.  You  and  all 
the  others  who  were  in  that  congregation 
must  know." 

Madam's  eyes  grew  dim  as  they  gazed 
down  the  vista.  "  I  was  among  the  young 
est  in  that  house  of  God,"  she  said.  "Of 
the  number  then  present  the  only  ones  now 
dwelling  with  us  are  Benjamin  Wheelock — " 

"Childish  with  age,"  whispered  Miss  Eu 
nice,  without  looking  up  from  her  work. 

" — And  Marianna  Bates." 

"Mother  forgets  sometimes.  Old  Miss 
Bates  died  last  week,"  again  interpolated 
Miss  Eunice. 

"Then  mother  is  the  only  one  who 
knows,"  said  Mrs.  Joshua,  with  an  awe- 
stricken  glance  at  the  sisters. 

Miss  Martha  had  kept  silence.  There  had 
come  back  to  her  the  memory  of  a  rainy 
77 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

day  in  her  childhood  when,  in  rummaging 
an  old  secretary,  her  small  arm  had  ap 
proached,  by  means  of  a  side-cupboard,  a 
disused  drawer.  Therein  had  lain  a  roll  of 
stiff,  yellow  paper,  decorated  with  an  ugly 
picture  of  a  tree,  bearing  the  ancestral 
name  of  Joshua  Hale  on  the  trunk,  from 
which  a  side  branch  had  been  lopped.  It 
was  not  an  entertaining  picture,  and  she 
had  not  grieved  to  find  the  drawer,  which 
she  had  left  open,  empty  on  her  return  from 
the  more  congenial  occupation  of  banister- 
sliding.  But  now  she  cried:  "Mother,  will 
you  not  tell  us?  We  are  no  longer  chil 
dren.  Have  we  not  a  right  to  know?  Tell 
us,  was  Eve  a  Hale?" 

"Martha!"  appealed  Miss  Eunice,  af 
frighted. 

"Martha!"  remonstrated  Mrs.  Joshua,  in 
dignant. 

For  an  instant  madam's  hands  tight 
ened  upon  the  fan.  Then  she  waved  it  to 
and  fro,  slowly  as  a  censer.  "  As  Dr.  Brain  - 
erd  said,  'Let  us  read  the  twenty-second 
78 


THE    TRADITION 

psalm,'"  she  replied,  with  the  fond  smile 
of  one  who  refuses  to  children  knowledge 
of  matters  beyond  their  years. 

Little  Martha  appeared,  standing  on  tip 
toe  in  the  doorway,  airily  swinging  her  hat 
by  its  ribbons.  "I've  looked,  grandmoth 
er,"  said  she  —  "looked  everywhere,  and 
there  aren't  any  snow -drops  that  blush. 
They're  all  pure  white." 


ANGELS    UNAWARES 

sHE  stream  of  Miss  Sarah 
Jennings' s  energy  knew  no 
cessation.  But  it  was  not  a 
stream  which  flowed  in  a 
smooth  current;  it  moved  in 
jets  and  spurts,  consecutive,  yet  distinct. 
Her  methods  of  procedure  fell  into  numeri 
cal  sequence.  Thus,  on  one  August  morn 
ing  she  might  have  been  seen,  first,  picking 
her  vigorous  way  among  the  dew- wet  rows 
of  vegetables  leading  to  the  barn  door. 
Second,  the  head  of  a  horse  with  whitish 
coat  speckled  with  maroon,  who  had  been 
viewing  the  universe  with  dispassionate 
benevolence  from  the  stable  window,  ab 
ruptly  withdrew.  Third,  after  premonitory 
clatter  this  horse  progressed  down  the  lane, 
80 


ANGELS    UNAWARES 

drawing  a  top-buggy  with  wheels  so  clay- 
spattered  that  they  matched  the  roadway. 
Fourth,  leaving  the  horse  fastened  by  a  rope 
to  the  gnawed  hitching-post,  Miss  Sarah, 
with  accelerated  energy,  strode  back  to  the 
house.  Thereupon  succeeded  an  exception 
ally  long  pause  before  she  reappeared  for  her 
fifth  enactment,  this  time  from  the  front 
door,  and  attired  in  Sunday  black  silk  and 
bonnet  with  bunch  of  jiggling  jet.  As  she 
guided  the  steed  into  the  road,  she  felt  anx 
iously  in  her  pocket  for  the  door-key  which 
she  had  just  deposited  therein,  and  finally, 
as  the  horse  with  many  mannerisms  fell 
into  his  usual  amble,  she  turned  to  descry, 
through  the  little  oblong  glass  in  the  buggy 
curtain,  whether  the  house  was  where  she 
had  left  it  a  second  before.  She  found  that 
as  yet  it  was  remaining  stationary,  with  the 
blue-curtained  window  in  the  black  gable 
peering  like  a  wistful  eye  above  the  great 
bowlders  at  the  turn  of  the  road.  Arrived 
at  this  point,  she  considered  her  prepara 
tions  accomplished,  her  departure  achieved. 

6  8l 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

"Get  up!"  said  Sarah,  reassured,  and  lifted 
the  reins  to  slap  the  horse,  whose  anatomy 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  buggy  seat 
ended  abruptly  at  the  peak  of  his  collar. 

As  they  drew  near  the  Knapp  house,  the 
horse  of  his  own  accord  turned  into  the 
broad,  grassy  hollow  which  led  to  the  horse 
block.  The  house  had  been  originally  red, 
and  as  the  succeeding  coats  of  white  paint 
had  worn  thin,  pinkish  streaks  were  now 
left  along  the  edges  of  the  clapboarding. 
Two  rows  of  white  phlox  led  up  to  the 
door,  with  a  porch  and  steps  of  broad  gran 
ite  slabs.  As  the  buggy  stopped,  Miss  Lau 
retta  Knapp,  in  Sunday  silk  and  bonnet 
with  white  lilacs,  came  lightly  down  the 
flower-bordered  path. 

"You  always  were  prompt,  Sarah,"  said 
she,  stowing  away  a  white  paper  box  under 
the  seat. 

"  Better  be  ready  and  not  to  go,"  replied 

Sarah,  and  quoted  the  remainder  of  that 

dismal  proverb  as  they  started  down  the 

road,  while  Lauretta,  in  her  turn,  twisted 

82 


AN&ELS    UNAWARES 

over  the  buggy  side  to  give  her  dwelling  a 
final  glance  of  admiration. 

"They  have  a  lovely  day  for  the  anni 
versary,"  said  Lauretta. 

"Yes.  I  guess  they  couldn't  have  asked 
for  a  better  day  than  this  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years  ago,  for  founding  Putnam,"  re 
sponded  Sarah,  her  eyes  on  the  horse,  who 
was  ascending  a  slope  which  from  his  ma 
noeuvres  appeared  Alpine. 

"I  suppose,"  went  on  Lauretta,  tenta 
tively,  "that  in  all  these  years  there  have 
been  tremendous  strides  made."  Not  that 
she  was  concerned  in  the  least  whether  there 
had  been  "strides"  or  not;  but  simply  be 
cause  the  sensation  of  idle  hands  in  her  lap 
brought  the  obligation  of  formalities — such 
as  an  appropriate  choice  of  themes  for  dis 
cussion  on  the  way  to  the  town  anniversary. 

"No  doubt,"  assented  Sarah;  "wonder 
ful!" 

"Although,  for  my  part,  I  don't  see  how 
any  house  could  be  built  better  than  ours, 
with  oak  rafters  and  a  big  centre  chimney." 
83 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

In  generalities,  everything;  in  particulars, 
nothing — was  Lauretta's  motto. 

"Neither  can  I,"  responded  Sarah,  em 
phatically.  Then,  when  the  horse,  after 
infinite  precaution,  was  safely  prepared  to 
descend  the  hillock,  she  continued:  "And 
I  haven't  found  anything  prettier  than  the 
old  blue  and  white  coverlets,  or  tasted  any 
thing  better  than  cake  mixed  by  the  old 
recipes,  or  sat  in  any  handsomer  or  more 
comfortable  chairs,  or  heard  of  any  abler 
people,  than  there  were  in  those  days." 

Lauretta  assented  eagerly.  There  was 
nothing  forced  in  her  acquiescence.  The 
friendship  of  the  two  women  was  founded 
upon  a  fine  deference  for  each  other's  in 
dividuality.  It  was  cemented  by  their  sim 
ilarity  of  experience;  for  each  had  found 
herself  left  in  her  homestead  as  the  sole  rep 
resentative  of  the  family,  each  was  familiar 
with  the  loneliness  of  widely  scattered  com 
panions,  each  had  adopted  the  habit  of  wear 
ing  perpetual  black  in  memory  of  kinsfolk 
whose  names  after  long  years  of  separation 
84 


ANGELS    UNAWARES 

recalled  only  childish  faces.  Appended  to 
the  tacitly  granted  agreement  that  Sarah 
was  the  leader,  was  the  tacit  understanding 
that  Lauretta  was  quite  free  to  "speak  her 
own  mind . ' '  Obviously,  however,  comments 
upon  progress  were  no  longer  incumbent; 
for  when  two  are  perfectly  agreed,  how  can 
a  discussion  be  maintained? 

In  social  silence  they  drove  on.  The  ef 
fect  of  the  landscape  was  so  pictorial  that 
a  frame  held  up  at  random  could  scarcely 
have  avoided  enclosing  some  satisfactory 
composition  of  stone  wall  and  roadway, 
or  of  tree  and  field,  or  of  low-lying  farm 
house  and  gambrel-roofed  hay-barns.  There 
was  an  impression  of  vividness  of  color  and 
solidity  of  line  such  as  is  rendered  by  a 
Claude  Lorraine  glass.  The  white  clouds 
rose  in  battlements  above  the  rounded 
hills,  the  verdure  seemed  polished,  the  trees 
carved.  While  the  scene  lacked  the  pen 
sive  charm  of  evanescent  beauty,  it  offered 
ample  compensation  in  its  cheering  sense 
of  a  permanent  and  compact  completeness. 
85 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

The  serene  sky  was  a  fairly  palpable  dome, 
adjusted  immediately  over  Putnam  and 
its  surrounding  suburbs.  Across  a  field  of 
breeze -bent,  shining  rushes  a  crow  with 
broad,  jet  wings  slowly  flapped  his  way  on 
a  secant  of  his  own  marking  from  one  point 
to  another  in  this  circumference.  Within 
that  boundary,  all  might  share  the  grateful 
conviction  that  they  were  well  included 
within  the  confines  of  a  systematic  universe. 

"I  hope  'twasn't  a  great  bother  for  you 
to  put  up  the  lunch  for  us  both,"  said 
Sarah,  as  they  proceeded  in  leisurely  fashion 
along  the  narrow  road — a  buff  road,  striped 
lengthwise  with  two  green  bands  of  grass. 

"You  know  I  was  glad  to  do  it,  Sarah. 
It  wasn't  the  least  mite  of  trouble.  The 
only  thing  that  worried  me  was  that  we'd 
have  to  go  without  our  good  hot  cups  of  tea. 
I've  put  some  cold  tea  in  a  bottle,  and  we 
can  add  spring  -  water.  But  I  always  did 
think  that  cold  tea  was  poor  stuff." 

"  Do  you  happen  to  remember,  Lauretta, 
that  in  the  notices  of  the  Day's  Exercises, 
86 


ANGELS    UNAWARES 

given  out  from  the  pulpit  last  Sunday,  one 
was,  'Tea  will  be  served  at  the  Ladies' 
Club  during  the  afternoon'?  Now,  I  sup 
pose  you  wouldn't — ' 

"Sarah  Jennings,  you  don't  mean  to  say 
that  you'd  go,  after  driving  all  day  and 
getting  all  blown  about,  and  in  your  old 
gloves  anyway — you  don't  mean  to  say  that 
you'd  think  of  going  to  a  tea-party  with  a 
lot  of  strangers?" 

"No,  no,  of  course  not,"  said  Sarah,  has 
tily,  "only  I  thought  that  if  you'd  forgot 
ten  the  notice  and  had  wanted  tea,  I'd  have 
had  it  on  my  conscience." 

Neither  of  the  two  ladies  had  the  name 
of  being  "a  great  hand  to  run  on."  The 
tea  topic,  like  that  of  progress,  was  consid 
ered  closed. 

Miss  Jennings  and  Miss  Knapp  lived  in  a 
region  known  within  the  limits  of  Putnam 
as  "the  country."  But  the  two  felt  no 
such  implication  of  vagueness  about  their 
dwelling-place.  To  their  minds,  their  local 
habitations  were  set  cosily  in  one  of  the 
87 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

world's  centres  of  distribution,  by  name 
—  definitely  supplied  by  the  cross-roads 
grocery  with  a  post-office  included  among 
its  more  modern  "notions" — East  Weston. 
Their  day's  expedition  was  no  offering  from 
outlanders  to  civic  pride,  but  a  recognition 
of  one  commonwealth  by  another.  Yet, 
side  by  side  with  this  assurance,  was  an 
inborn  timidity  concerning  the  meeting  of 
strangers  on  strange  ground.  To  meet  on 
ancestral  acres,  under  the  patronage  of  the 
homestead  roof -tree,  was  another  matter 
quite.  But  the  authority  of  their  environ 
ment  gone,  they  felt  stripped  as  crusta 
ceans  without  their  shells.  Indeed,  by  some 
strange  process  of  habit,  the  houses  and 
their  occupants  had  grown  to  be  apparent 
parts  the  one  of  the  other.  Sarah's  cool 
eyes,  her  iron -gray  hair,  her  severe,  an 
gular  form,  seemed  literally  an  emanation 
from  the  small-paned,  blue  windows,  the 
weather-beaten  shingles,  the  bowlder-fenced 
door-yard.  The  withered  roses  on  Lauret 
ta's  cheeks,  the  faded  daintiness  of  her  en- 
88 


ANGELS    UNAWARES 

tire  person,  were  no  less  in  accord  with  her 
home,  suggestive  of  old-time  bloom,  ap 
proachable  between  prim,  white  blossoms. 
From  unfamiliar  contact  each  woman  felt 
not  only  an  emotional,  but  a  physical  shrink 
ing,  concealed  by  each  with  incongruously 
misleading  tactics.  Lauretta,  the  mistress 
of  all  she  surveyed,  bore  herself  as  the  worm 
before  it  has  turned;  Sarah  assumed  an 
aspect  of  pugnacity  towards  city-bred  hu 
manity  never  shown  before  the  gentle-eyed 
farm  beasts,  who  gratefully  conceded  her 
local  importance. 

Cheered  by  a  tacit  understanding  of  their 
motives,  the  two  women  drove  on  their 
peaceful  way.  Straggling,  bright  -  colored 
weeds  threw  fragile  purple  shadows  on  sil 
very  stone  walls.  A  pleasant  breath  came 
from  upland  fields  of  stubble.  Shreds  of 
hay,  caught  by  road-side  trees  from  high- 
piled  wains,  sifted  down  now  and  then  to 
the  buggy  floor. 

"  Lauretta,  as  we  had  such  an  early  break 
fast,"  suggested  Sarah,  "would  you  mind 
89 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

having  lunch  just  as  soon  as  the  noon 
whistle  blows?" 

"I'm  as  hungry  now  as  I  used  to  be  that 
last  half -hour  before  recess,"  replied  Lauret 
ta.  "  From  my  seat  I  could  see  the  lunch- 
baskets  in  the  hall.  I  remember  thinking 
that  when  I  was  grown  up  I'd  have  some 
thing  to  eat  just  as  soon  as  ever  I  felt  the 
least  bit  hungry,  no  matter  what  time  of 
day  it  was." 

"Then  let's  have  lunch  right  now,"  said 
Sarah,  decisively.  "I  don't  care  a  particle 
if  it  is  only  a  little  while  after  eleven.  And 
I  don't  care  who  passes  by  and  says  they've 
seen  us  eating  in  the  middle  of  the  forenoon. 
I  guess  a  Knapp  and  a  Jennings  can  afford 
to  do  what  they  please." 

Before  them  lay  a  Corot  landscape.  On 
the  right  a  feathery  ash,  with  supple  fingers 
of  shadow  clinging  across  the  grass-rough 
ened  road ;  on  the  left  a  rounded,  fluffy  mass 
of  maples.  Thither  Sarah  directed  her  steed, 
who  turned  willingly  enough  into  the  grass 
by  the  road  -  side,  and  with  more  energy 
90 


ANGELS    UNAWARES 

than  he  had  yet  displayed,  buried  his  nose 
in  a  little  brown  stream  that  ran  out  from 
under  a  cleft  in  the  stone  wall.  Lauretta 
watched  her  friend  admiringly  as  she  ar 
ranged  the  horse's  nose-bag,  and  then  wash 
ed  her  hands  in  a  pebbly  basin  filled  with 
spring- water.  "  I  wish  I  were  more  like  you, 
Sarah,"  said  she.  "If  I'd  been  by  myself, 
I'd  never  have  opened  my  lunch-box  till 
the  whistle  blew,  no  matter  if  I  was  starv 
ing  and  there  was  a  sightly  place  like  this 
ahead  of  me." 

"Pshaw!  pshaw!"  commented  Sarah,  se 
cretly  delighted  with  the  tribute.  Then 
Lauretta  produced  the  white  box,  and  each 
lady,  with  a  red-bordered  napkin  in  her  lap, 
tasted  the  nectar  and  ambrosia  known  only 
to  picnickers. 

"  I  brought  a  box,"  said  Lauretta,  as  she 
deftly  manipulated  a  hard-boiled  egg  and 
an  envelope  of  salt  and  pepper,  "instead 
of  a  basket,  because  then  we  can  throw  it 
away  and  not  be  bothered  with  it  coming 
home." 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

"Um,  urn,"  responded  Sarah,  under- 
standingly.  Her  chicken  sandwich  lacked 
cohesiveness,  and  she  had  just  succeeded  in 
making  satisfactory  headway. 

At  dessert-time  the  horse's  nose-bag  was 
removed  by  his  solicitous  mistress,  that  he 
might  gratify  his  penchant  for  young  maple 
boughs.  In  the  buggy  the  two  ladies  sipped 
diluted  cold  tea  from  tiny  cups,  and  nibbled 
and  commented  upon  slices  of  the  famous 
Knapp  fruit-cake.  "  But  I  knew  the  tea 
wouldn't  be  good,"  sighed  Lauretta;  "it's 
better  when  it's  strong,  and  insipid  when 
it's  weak." 

"It's  very  good  for  cold  tea,"  offered 
Sarah,  shaking  out  stray  crumbs  from  the 
lap-robe. 

"I  don't  think  much  of  it,"  again  sighed 
Lauretta,  folding  the  napkins. 

"  Well,  of  course  there's  nothing  like  a  hot 
cup,"  agreed  Sarah. 

"Of  course  not."  Then  after  a  pause, 
"Sarah,  do  you  know,  after  all,  I  can't  see 
my  way  clear  to  throw  this  box  away?  It's 
92 


ANGELS    UNAWARES 

as  good  as  new,  and  some  time  I'll  want  one 
just  like  it.  It  seems  so  wasteful.  Would 
you  mind  if  I  put  it  back  under  the  seat?" 

"We'd  never  know  it  was  there,"  said 
Sarah;  "and  I  never  could  bring  myself  to 
throw  away  a  perfectly  good  box." 

Emboldened  by  this  confession  of  self- 
indulgence,  Lauretta  continued  her  medi 
tations  aloud:  "  If  it  weren't  for  going  into 
a  room  full  of  people  who  don't  know  and 
don't  care  who  you  are — 

"I  shouldn't  think  of  going,"  broke  in 
her  companion,  conclusively.  "That  gen 
eral  notice  may  suit  some  people,  but  I'd 
never  feel  that  I'd  been  properly  asked 
without  a  special  invitation." 

"You're  quite  right,  Sarah,"  concurred 
Lauretta — "quite  right.  I  wouldn't  go,  ei 
ther,  where  I  wasn't  expected." 

The  next  corner,  important  with  a  sign 
post,  brought  them  out  from  the  single- 
track  roadway,  the  peculiar  property  of 
East  Weston,  upon  the  main  line  which  led 
to  the  Rome  —  locally  known  as  Putnam 
93 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

— of  all  that  suburban  neighborhood.  Im 
mediately  the  top-buggy  lost  the  distinction 
of  being  the  only  vehicle  in  sight.  Each 
bend  of  the  road  revealed  that  the  two 
ladies  had  many  companions  on  their  pa 
triotic  pilgrimage.  It  was  plain  that  this 
expedition,  which,  viewed  from  East  Wes- 
ton,  had  seemed  a  trifle  bold  and  dashing, 
was  already  receiving  popular  sanction. 
Obviously  the  eccentricity  would  have  been 
in  remaining  at  home.  Stimulated  by 
the  realization  that  they  were  part  of  a 
popular  movement,  Sarah  reached  for  the 
whip  and  rattled  it  fiercely  in  its  socket,  and 
Lauretta  smoothed  the  linen  lap-robe.  Thus 
they  were  prepared  to  salute  with  due 
dignity  the  vehicles  which  appeared  in  the 
bend  of  the  road  behind  and  disappeared  in 
front,  even  as  on  the  high  seas  an  "  ocean 
greyhound ' '  passes  a  freight  steamer.  Mean 
while  from  the  little  window  in  the  buggy 
curtain  Lauretta  reconnoitred  the  roadway 
behind  them,  and  reported  advancing  forces 
to  her  friend,  so  that  she  might  greet  with 
94 


ANGELS    UNAWARES 

exactly  the  fitting  degree  of  warmth  their 
passing  fellow-travellers. 

"There  come  the  Whitmans  now,  all  of 
them,"  ran  Lauretta's  monologue,  as  a 
"democrat"  drawn  by  a  pair  of  gray  dap 
pled  horses  approached.  They  bow.  "  Well, 
I  think  they  would  need  to  have  strong 
horses.  Four  on  each  seat,  counting  the 
babies.  .  .  .  Here,  Sarah,  look  quick!  Ned 
Bainbridge  and  his  wife."  They  bow. 
"She's  a  pretty  woman,  isn't  she?  And 
did  you  see  the  little  child,  standing  between 
her  father's  knees?  I'm  so  glad  that  when 
she  wanted  her  hat  off,  they  happened  to 
hang  it  on  the  far  side  of  the  buggy  from  us. 
She  has  a  face  like  a  flower.  .  .  .  You  needn't 
hurry,  Sarah,  but  here  come  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Bainbridge,  the  old  people.  There'll  be 
plenty  of  time  before  they  get  past.  Good- 
morning,  good-morning.  Yes,  it  is  a  lovely 
day,  isn't  it?"  They  pass.  "I  guess  they 
don't  know  how  that  buckboard  sags  under 
them.  And  see  how  much  too  narrow  the 
back  of  that  seat  is!  They  don't  have 
95 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

support  for  more  than  one  shoulder-blade 
apiece,  do  they?  .  .  .  Well,  Sarah,  will  you 
believe  it,  but  they've  filled  a  wagon-bed 
with  chairs,  to  bring  all  the  Old  Ladies' 
Home  into  town.  Isn't  that  nice?  Be  sure 
you  bow  especially  to  old  Miss  Wheelock. 
She's  right  in  front."  And  the  wagon, 
bulbous  with  black  parasols,  passed  on  its 
festive  way. 

As  the  succeeding  bends  brought  them 
nearer  to  town,  it  was  Sarah  who  clutched 
Lauretta's  knee;  for  now,  instead  of  being 
on  the  alert  for  friends  approaching  from 
behind,  the  speckled  horse  brought  them 
alongside  pedestrians  taking  their  digni 
fied  and  deliberate  way  by  the  foot-path, 
narrow  and  hard  packed.  "There's  Mrs. 
Channing,"  exclaimed  Sarah,  recognizing 
a  self-respecting  back  clad  in  black-and- 
white-striped  dimity.  "  Well,  she  is  smart, 
at  her  age,  to  be  stepping  off  to  town  at  this 
rate.  How  do  you  do?  Yes,  indeed,  Mrs. 
Channing,  I've  been  meaning  to  spend  a  day 
with  you  this  long  while.  No,  not  this 
96 


ANGELS    UNAWARES 

week,  the  week  after.  Nicely,  thank  you. 
Good-bye.  .  .  .  And,  Lauretta,  do  look  (you 
mustn't  keep  squirming  round  any  more; 
they'll  see  you),  there's  Judge  Lattimer; 
and  see,  there's  Deacon  Hollis  in  his  Sun 
day  suit,  walking  along  as  calm  as  if  he  was 
passing  the  plate.  Good-morning,  deacon. 
This  is  a  great  occasion,  isn't  it?  Yes,  we 
thought  that  our  families  ought  to  be  rep 
resented."  And  so  on,  until  they  reached 
the  covered  wooden  bridge,  whose  clatter 
and  rumble  appeared  to  afford  the  speckled 
horse  a  childish  delight.  Then  an  abrupt 
turn  brought  them  directly  upon  the 
"down -town"  of  Putnam,  and  behold  — 
they  found  themselves  no  longer  upon 
one  of  the  radii,  but  in  the  very  centre  of 
activity. 

"Down-town"  in  Putnam  was  a  region 
with  as  definite  geographical  boundaries  as 
an  island.  It  extended  through  exactly 
three  blocks  of  paved  streets,  office  build 
ings,  and  shop-fronts.  To-day  this  space, 
always  in  itself  sufficiently  interesting,  was 
7  97 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

rendered  still  further  absorbing  by  walls 
awave  with  bunting  and  flags;  with  air 
resonant  with  strident- voiced  hucksters  of 
fering  inconsequent  red  and  blue  balloons; 
with  a  crowd  stationed  along  the  sidewalk 
in  such  close  ranks  that  their  feet  covered 
the  curb  in  an  unbroken  scallop.  The  mo 
tion,  the  uproar,  the  throng,  seemed  to  in 
crease  the  temperature  perceptibly.  Sarah 
raised  the  reins  and  slapped  the  horse,  who 
was  inclined  to  pause  and  marvel  over 
urban  manners  and  customs;  whereupon, 
with  a  slight  exhibition  of  nervous  resent 
ment  and  a  brisk  rattle  of  wheels,  he  drew 
the  ladies  on  to  the  region  of  "up-town," 
immediately  adjacent. 

Once  again  on  the  smooth  gravel  road, 
between  arching  trees,  the  visitors  from 
East  Weston  recovered  the  equanimity 
which  the  sordid  din  of  the  market-place 
had  shaken.  "Seems  to  me  they  might 
have  known  those  pillars  would  look  like 
barbers'  poles,  wound  that  way,"  com 
mented  Sarah,  pointing  disapprovingly  to 
98 


ANGELS    UNAWARES 

a  white  house  whose  classic  columns  were 
wound  in  red  and  blue. 

4 '  Yes.  But  see  there — isn'  t  that  pretty  ?' ' 
and  Lauretta  waved  towards  a  sharply  ga 
bled  house  whose  entire  front  had  been 
draped  after  the  manner  of  an  old-fashioned 
cradle  canopy. 

"That's  handsome,  too,"  acquiesced  Sa 
rah,  nodding  at  another  whose  straight 
ridge-pole  and  eaves,  parallel  with  the 
street,  had  been  ''treated"  with  drapery 
reminiscent  of  a  mantel  lambrequin. 

44 Ah,  but  there!"  they  both  exclaimed. 
It  was  only  a  squat,  weather-beaten  old 
house  with  broad,  hand-wrought  shingles. 
Across  the  age-warped  portico  hung  a 
faded,  tattered  flag.  But  Sarah  and  Lau 
retta  understood;  and  had  there  been  ad 
mitted  among  the  conventions  any  mode 
of  expressing  veneration,  they  would  have 
expressed  their  emotion  otherwise  than  by 
an  additional  stiffness  of  demeanor. 

Along  the  side  of  the  road,  where  the 
street  widened  before  branching  into  The 
99 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

Triangle,  a  line  of  carriages  was  already 
formed.  By  one  brief,  comprehensive  glance 
Sarah  discovered  a  hiatus  in  the  series  of 
clay-colored  wheels,  and  by  a  triumph  of 
generalship  inserted  her  equipage  between 
two  others.  Then,  with  a  happy  sense  of 
their  part  well  done,  and  a  release  from  all 
terrestrial  responsibilities,  the  two  women 
proceeded  to  regard  the  situation  from  the 
purely  spectacular  point  of  view. 

As  it  happened,  they  had  arrived  at  one 
of  those  fortuitous  moments  in  the  course 
of  preparation  when  the  drudgery  is  accom 
plished  but  the  few  last  effective  touches 
are  yet  in  progress.  The  audience  found 
themselves  catching  the  spirit  of  suspense, 
of  anticipation,  of  heart- warming  flattery, 
in  that  so  arduous  labors  were  regarded 
as  but  incidental  to  the  final  scene.  There 
was  an  enthusiasm-breeding  sense  of  inti 
macy  ;  for  in  the  departure  from  the  course 
of  their  every-day  lives  the  spectators,  no 
less  than  the  actors,  were  playing  parts. 

With  fresh  acquisitions  of  interest,  Sarah 

TOO 


ANGELS    UNAWARES 

and  Lauretta  watched  the  "hacks"  which 
now  and  again  drove  up  from  the  sta 
tion,  suit-cases  piled  high  beside  autocratic 
drivers,  genial  gentlemen  representing  gov 
ernment  securely  enclosed  behind  carriage 
doors.  There  were  occasional  squads  of 
militia  hurrying  to  headquarters,  regimental 
coats  over  their  arms,  helmets  in  hand. 
There  were  groups  of  academy  boys,  proud 
ly  drawing  white  cotton  gloves  over  their 
brown  hands.  Here  and  there  an  "  Indian  " 
— for  as  a  token  of  respect  to  the  past  "  the 
aborigines"  were  to  figure  in  the  procession 
—walked  along  to  his  appointed  wigwam; 
but  not  even  the  spectacle  of  a  respected 
citizen  attired  in  feather-duster  head-dress 
and  gamboge  calico  could  hold  attention 
long.  Then  came  fewer  stragglers.  Then 
two  o'clock,  the  appointed  hour,  boomed 
out  from  the  court  -  house  clock.  From 
the  farther  side  of  The  Triangle  came  the 
first  blare  of  a  brass  band.  "  It's  started. 
They're  coming!"  all  the  spectators,  who 
have  refrained  from  speaking  among  them- 

IOI 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

selves  unless  already  acquainted,  now  cry 
in  unison. 

Slowly,  with  a  clearer  rhythm,  the  music 
approaches.  Round  the  curve  swings  a 
cordon  of  the  Putnam  police.  The  music 
seems  as  visible  as  they. 

"Oh,  Columbia,  the  gem  of  the  ocean!" 

plays  the  band;  and  the  tune  seems  to 
bring  into  being  the  tanned  crews  from  the 
ships  anchored  down  the  harbor;  it  seems 
to  draw  in  its  train,  as  if  the  days  of  the 
Pied  Piper  were  again  come,  the  crisp 
militia,  the  firemen  dragging  their  hydran 
gea-decked  hook-and-ladder,  the  civilians 
uniformed  by  badges  on  coat  lapels,  the 
Indians,  the  children,  the  notabilities  in 
their  carriages.  Then,  as  the  first  grows 
thin,  conies  fresh  music.  Ah,  it  is  "Auld 
Lang  Syne"  they  play,  and  the  veterans 
follow,  with  rigidity  restored  to  drooping 
shoulders,  or  a  soldierly  bearing  to  pompous 
strides,  all  personalities  again  merged  by  the 
compelling  strains  into  comradeship.  True, 
102 


ANGELS    UNAWARES 

the  appeal  to  the  emotions  by  wind-rippled 
banners,  the  company  of  marching  men,  the 
rhythm  of  brazen  music  is  sensational.  But 
perhaps  within  the  confines  of  the  Putnam 
universe  any  means  more  subtile  would 
have  lacked  the  force  to  break  through  the 
locally  established  prejudice  against  that  or 
der  of  beings  whose  principles  allow  them 
unblushing  to  "make  spectacles  of  them 
selves";  to  overcome  the  terror  of  them 
selves  being  objects  of  ridicule;  to  coun 
teract  the  inherited  dislike  of  display,  the 
innate  distrust  of  ceremonial.  And  however 
crude  these  means,  is  not  the  end  their 
justification  ?  For  now  the  men  who  a  few 
minutes  since,  covered  with  self -conscious 
ness  as  with  garments,  slunk  shamefaced 
through  the  streets  to  the  appointed  gath 
ering-places,  are  passing  with  the  glorified 
dignity  of  those  who  have  forgotten  them 
selves  in  the  spirit  of  the  hour.  They  are 
no  longer  Si  this  and  Hi  that;  they  are  re 
mote,  impersonal  symbols  of  the  stern  he 
roism  of  their  forefathers,  of  civic  pride,  of 
103 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

patriotism.  And  in  answer  to  the  thrill 
of  this  old-time  music,  this  inspiration  of 
concerted  action,  this  dramatic  expression 
of  their  town's  intimate  history,  the  spec 
tators'  habitual  restraint  burst  its  bounds. 
The  townsfolk  are  uplifted  in  a  fury  of 
sentiment.  They  wave  handkerchiefs,  they 
shout,  the  tears  run  down  their  cheeks. 
They  scarcely  know  it  then;  they  deny  it 
afterwards.  But  white-faced,  wet-eyed  they 
are  left,  bending  forward  that  the  last  mo 
ments  before  the  sluice-gates  are  again 
swung  to  upon  their  emotions  may  be  their 
own.  The  breeze  brings  back  the  strains; 
they  are,"  Good-bye,  Sweetheart,"  now.  But 
save  for  that  sound,  already  reminiscent, 
and  the  scurry  of  small  boys  who  follow 
close  at  the  heels  of  the  "p'rade"  as  a 
cloud  of  dust  pursues  an  express  train, 
the  street  is  bare.  It  lies  before  them 
in  its  sun  -  and  -  shadow  -  dappled  breadth, 
empty  with  an  emptiness  which  brings  a 
physical  pain.  Literally,  it  is  an  aching 
void. 

104 


ANGELS    UNAWARES 

A  sigh  ran  through  the  crowd.  Then, 
their  hesitancy  broken,  each  group  began 
to  bestir  itself,  some  aimlessly,  some  pur 
posefully,  but  all  moved  by  an  uncon 
scious  impulse  towards  activity.  Passivity 
was  out  of  the  question. 

The  wheels  of  the  neighboring  wagons 
scraped  the  sides  of  Sarah's  buggy,  their 
horses  were  swung  round  against  her  speck 
led  steed.  But  as  yet  she  sat,  indifferent  to 
such  trivialities,  her  quivering  hands  in 
decisive,  her  blue-gray  eyes  dim.  With  a 
fine  delicacy  she  refrained  from  looking  at 
her  companion,  not  lest  her  own  agitation 
should  be  betrayed,  but  lest  she  should 
intrude  upon  the  other's  shrine  of  senti 
ment,  perforce  unveiled.  Looming  large 
in  the  immediate  background  of  her  life 
was  the  memory  of  that  cohort  marching  to 
the  common  impulse  of  pride  in  the  fair 
name  of  their  venerable  town.  In  the  im 
mediate  foreground  lay  the  prospect  of  the 
placid  drive  behind  the  speckled  horse,  back 
over  the  hills  to  the  untroubled,  undeviat- 
I05 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

ing  routine  of  her  daily  life.  Ah,  well, 
doubtless — 

"  The  trivial  round,  the  common  task, 
Would  furnish  all  we  ought  to  ask"; 

but  as  an  outlet  for  this  surging  emotion, 
suddenly  roused  from  apathy,  their  tame 
acceptance  was  intolerably  inadequate.  The 
momentum  of  energy  demanded  expression. 

"  Lauretta,"  cried  Sarah,  in  thrilling  tones 
— "  Lauretta,  we're  going  to  the  Ladies'  Club 
to  be  entertained!" 

"Oh,  oh!"  quavered  Lauretta,  dismayed. 
But  then,  "  Do  you  think  it  would  hurt  the 
horse  if  you  whipped  him?"  she  added.  Miss 
Sarah  seized  the  whip  from  its  socket  and 
laid  it  dexterously  along  the  angular,  speck 
led  flank. 

Meanwhile  the  crowd  was  slowly  ebbing 
from  the  street  where  stood  the  Ladies' 
Club-house.  Soon  the  house  —  a  grayish- 
purple  cottage,  with  appliqued  garlands  in 
white,  in  effect  a  singularly  happy  represen 
tation  of  an  old  Wedgewood  sugar-bowl — 
106 


ANGELS    UNAWARES 

stood  deserted  in  an  apparently  uninhab 
ited  neighborhood.  In  the  parlor  sat  two 
dispirited  little  figures,  each  clad  in  a  reck 
less  expanse  of  immaculate  pique.  It  was 
a  dismal  prospect.  Set  round  the  room 
were  the  cases  used  by  the  Woman's  Ex 
change;  behind  their  glass  doors  hung  a 
profusion  of  the  over-dainty  articles  which 
women  love  to  present  to  each  other,  and 
then  in  time  of  need,  under  the  deplorable 
delusion  that  what  is  acceptable  as  a  gift  is 
tempting  as  a  purchase,  are  wont  to  invest 
their  tiny  capitals  of  time  and  money  in  the 
manufacture  of  these  laborious  trifles.  In  a 
corner  stood  a  wicker  tea-table,  with  elabo 
rate  paraphernalia  for  refreshing  a  thirsty 
and  exhausted  multitude.  But  the  two  lit 
tle  ladies  had  the  feast  all  to  themselves. 

"I  hate  to  think  what  Fred  will  say  to 
me  when  I  have  to  tell  him  at  supper  that 
no  one  came,"  said  the  one. 

"It  isn't  what  Harold  says;  it's  what 
he  looks.  But  when  I  put  it  to  him — '  Af 
ter  watching  a  procession  in  New  York, 
107 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

wouldn't  you  be  glad  and  thankful  to  es 
cape  from  the  noise  and  crowd  into  a  quiet 
and  hospitable  room?' — he  couldn't  deny 
it.  All  he  could  say  was :  '  But  Putnam 
isn't  New  York,  you  know.  I'm  not  sure 
but  Putnamites  may  be  as  fond  of  racket 
for  one  day  in  every  fifty  years  as  New- 
Yorkers  would  be  of  silence  and  solitude.' 
And  then  he  said  something  about  one's 
education  in  Putnam  character  beginning 
with  one's  grandfather.  Why,  I  feel  that  I 
know  the  people  very  well,  and  I've  lived 
here  barely  a  year." 

"Yes,  indeed.  I'm  sure  that  the  towns 
folk  and  I  have  been  very  intimate.  They 
were  so  punctilious  about  calling,  and  so 
cordial  about  inviting  us  out.  Then  you  re 
member  that  I  asked  ever  so  many  people's 
advice  about  serving  tea  here  this  afternoon ; 
for,  of  course,  being  new-comers  from  the 
city,  we  wanted  to  make  sure  that  an  in 
novation  would  be  acceptable.  And  every 
body  said  that  while  she  herself  might  be 
detained,  she  was  sure  that  there  were  any 
108 


ANGELS    UNAWARES 

number  of  people  who'd  love  to  come. 
Several  said  that  they  thought  it  was  a  very 
sweet  idea  that  the  president  and  vice- 
president  should  be  at  the  club-rooms,  if  we 
were  quite  sure  that  it  was  no  sacrifice  on 
our  parts.  Fancy,  when  we  could  see  the 
procession  perfectly  from  the  windows,  be 
ing  jostled  about  on  the  sidewalk  —  for 
pleasure." 

"Fancy!  But  do  you  know  what  Fred 
said  just  as  he  went  off  this  morning? 
'You'll  be  lucky  if  you  corral  one!'" 

"I  can't  understand  why  they  don't 
come.  Maybe  they  think  it's  too  early. 
But  it's  growing  late.  Suppose,  Alice,  I  do 
take  away  a  few  of  the  cups,  and  bring 
them  on  gradually  as  they're  needed." 

Again  they  waited.  "I  believe  I'll  put 
a  few  more  cups  into  the  cupboard,"  said 
Harold's  wife.  She  was  returning  deject 
edly,  when  Fred's  wife,  from  her  post  be 
hind  the  tea-table,  suddenly  clutched  her 
and  pointed  out  of  the  window.  Up  the 
broad  road  there  approached  a  top-buggy, 
109 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

its  canopy  swaying  with  the  excited  trot 
of  a  speckled  horse,  his  head  held  aloft  by 
tense-drawn  reins.  It  drew  up  at  the  horse 
block.  Two  ladies  in  black  silk  alighted. 

"They  don't  seem  quite  decided  about 
coming  in,"  said  Harold's  wife.  "I'm  go 
ing  right  out  to  stop  them  and  make  sure." 

"You  must  bring  them  in,"  called  Fred's 
wife  above  the  crackle  of  flying  skirts. 
"Don't  let  them  go  away,  no  matter — " 

While  she  bustled  about  with  the  alcohol 
and  the  tea-ball,  she  kept  one  anxious  eye 
upon  her  co-mate  and  comrade  in  exile,  who 
was  shaking  hands  effusively  with  the  two 
ladies  yet  standing  on  the  horse-block,  and 
then  by  the  very  force  of  her  cordiality  was 
drawing  them  up  the  walk. 

At  the  door  Fred's  wife  met  them,  with 
the  manner  of  a  hostess  greeting  her  most 
cherished  guests.  "We're  so  glad  to  see 
you,"  she  chimed.  "You  must  be  so  tired. 
Come  right  in  and  sit  down.  This  chair  is 
considered  the  most  comfortable;  and  let 
me  take  your  wrap." 
no 


ANGELS    UNAWARES 

"Wasn't  the  parade  nice?"  the  repre 
sentatives  of  the  club  went  on,  in  alternat 
ing  strains.  "  Yes,  we're  very  proud.  Did 
you  see  my  husband  ?  Why,  he  was  in  the 
militia,  the  second  from  the  end  in  the 
seventh  row.  Cream  or  lemon?  Yes,  we 
have  them  both  right  here.  How  nice  that 
you  came  just  now.  We  can  all  have  a  cup 
together." 

"Are  you  sure,"  asked  Lauretta,  still  a 
little  tremulous,  "that  we  aren't  putting 
you  to  any  trouble?" 

"It  is  a  pleasure,"  replied  the  hostesses, 
the  ring  of  sincerity  in  their  voices. 

"We  felt  a  little  hesitation  about  com 
ing,"  went  on  Sarah,  "because  the  notice 
was  given  out  so  generally." 

"  But  you  know  it  was  meant  to  be  per 
sonal,"  beamed  Harold's  wife,  "and  al 
though  I  wish  that  there  were  some  other 
people  here  to  meet  you,  we  are  very 
fortunate  in  having  you  all  to  our 
selves." 

"I'm  glad  there  aren't  any  others  here," 
in 


responded  Sarah,  composedly.  "  I  always 
did  dislike  a  crowd." 

"But  are  you  sure,"  appealed  Lauretta, 
as  she  accepted  her  cup,  "that  you  aren't 
all  tired  out  attending  to  all  the  other 
people  who've  been  here?" 

"Not  at  all,  not  at  all." 

All  four  ladies  glowed  with  satisfaction. 
All  four  sipped  tea.  All,  considering  the 
few  minutes  of  their  acquaintance,  felt 
strangely  intimate.  All  exchanged  items 
about  their  ancestors,  -regardless  of  whether 
they  had  figured  or  not  in  the  occasion  of 
Putnam's  foundation.  And  finally  each 
couple  promised  to  "be  sure  and  stop  in," 
the  next  time  that  either  passed  the  other's 
way.  It  was  an  eminently  successful  oc 
casion. 

The  two  officials  of  the  Ladies'  Club  saw 
their  guests  to  the  carriage,  and  again,  over 
the  linen  lap-robe,  shook  hands. 

"  We're  so  pleased  that  we  had  the 
chance  for  a  nice,  quiet  talk,"  said  the  pres 
ident. 

112 


ANGELS    UNAWARES 

"  I  think  that  we  happened  upon  a  very 
fortunate  interval,"  said  Lauretta. 

"I  only  regret  that  you  have  not  met 
other  club  members,"  said  the  vice-presi 
dent. 

"We  are  quite  content  to  have  met  the 
two  chief  officers,"  said  Sarah. 

"  Some  time  you  must  come  to  one  of  our 
meetings.  The  rooms  are  full  then." 

"How  very  nice." 

"Yes;  I'm  sure  you'd  enjoy  it." 

"  Doubtless.  But  it  was  very  pleasant 
this  afternoon." 

"Good-bye,  good-bye,"  called  the  repre 
sentatives  of  the  club.  "We're  so  glad  you 
came." 

"  Good-bye,"  called  the  representatives  of 
East  Weston.  "We're  glad,  too." 

The  president  and  vice-president,  arm- 
in-arm,  returned  up  the  walk.  Their  faces 
were  yet  wreathed  in  smiles.  "  Now  aren't 
you  thankful  that  we  carried  out  our  plans  ?' ' 
asked  Fred's  wife.  "  I  guess  even  our  hus- 

8  113 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

bands  can't  say  a  word  now  about  our  citi 
fied  ideas.  It  was  worth  all  the  preparation, 
wasn't  it,  just  to  meet  those  two  old  dears? 
Weren't  they  sweet?" 

"Simply  idyllic.  Do  you  know,  I  came 
near  telling  the  pink-cheeked  one  how  dole 
ful  we'd  been,  and  how  she  and  her  angular 
friend  saved  the  day.  In  a  way,  it  seems  as 
if  they  ought  to  understand." 

A  gentle  mist  was  falling,  restricting  the 
landscape  with  a  pleasurable  restfulness  to 
a  strip  of  roadway,  its  boundary  stone  wall, 
and,  beyond,  to  mingled  red  milk-weed  and 
golden-rod  in  upland  meadows  rolling  softly 
away  to  the  pearl-colored  sky.  The  two 
friends,  blissfully  relaxed  in  the  reaction 
after  the  adventures  of  their  thrilling  day, 
leaned  back  in  the  buggy.  The  horse  took 
his  own  gait  along  the  grassy  road  that  led 
home  to  East  Weston. 

Lauretta  broke  the  silence.  "I  am  glad 
we  went,  Sarah,"  she  said ;  "  it  was  the  right 
thing  to  do,  after  all.  Weren't  they  pleasant- 
114 


ANGELS    UNAWARES 

appearing  women?  They  might  have  lived 
in  East  Weston  all  their  lives." 

"Yes,"  said  Sarah,  "they  didn't  seem 
a  bit  like  strangers.  Do  you  know,  I  had 
a  feeling  that  we  were  deceiving  them,  some 
how,  in  not  telling  them  that  we  hadn't 
meant  to  come,  and  that  we  dreaded  meet 
ing  a  crowd,  and  that  we  were  thankful  no 
one  was  there." 

"I  almost  did  tell,"  confessed  Lauretta, 
"for  it  seems  rather  a  pity,  doesn't  it,  that 
they'll  never  understand?" 


THE    AFFECTION 


THINK  mignonette  is  ugly, 
Aunt  Helena,"  said  Lois. 

"Oh  no,   you  don't    think 
that,  I'm   sure.      Mignonette 
is  a  pretty  flower." 
"  But   I   don't   think  it's   pretty,   Aunt 
Helena." 

"Then  I  wouldn't  say  so,  my  dear." 
Such  was  the  code  by  which  Lois  Lattimer 
was  reared  by  her  aunt  Helena.  Lois  had 
been  brought  to  the  Place  when  so  young  a 
child  that  her  mind  had  seemed  as  pliable 
as  the  soft  hair  that  Miss  Helena  had  twined 
round  her  fingers.  She  was  a  docile-manner 
ed  little  girl,  and  her  childish  heresies  were 
apparently  suppressed  as  conclusively  by  a 
gentle  reproof  as  was  her  bedtime  candle 
116 


THE    AFFECTION 

flame  by  the  silver  snuffers.  True,  Lois 
was  not  a  talkative  child,  as  was  natural 
in  a  household  consisting  only  of  the  niece 
and  the  aunt,  but  under  Miss  Helena's  care 
ful  supervision  the  child's  mind  was  ap 
parently  no  less  decorously  clad  than  her 
body. 

Lois  had  the  Lattimer  blue-gray  eyes  and 
the  soft,  lustreless  hair  that  never  catches 
a  high  light,  but  folds  about  the  head  like 
a  drapery  of  cloth.  Her  chin  had  a  flower- 
like  upward  turn.  Even  as  a  child  she  had 
an  odd  trick  of  smiling  with  an  effect  as 
if  she  were  laughing  through  her  tears.  "  It 
is  a  strange  way  for  a  child  to  smile,"  said 
Miss  Eunice  to  Madam  Hale. 

"Her  mother  smiled  that  way,"  was  the 
reply. 

"Oh,  but  not  till  after  her  husband's 
death,  and  till  she  knew  that  she  must  die 
too." 

"It  is  the  child's  inheritance,"  declared 
Madam  Hale.  "She  will  live  out  her  life 
till  the  smile  seems  no  longer  out  of  keep- 
117 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

ing.     I  know,  I  know.     Have  I  lived  my 
eighty  years  for  nothing?" 

Miss  Helena  was  infinitely  proud  of  Lois. 
She  loved  to  see  her  little  figure  with  its 
birdlike  air  tripping  about  the  Place  on  the 
time-honored  errands  of  carrying  napkin  - 
covered  desserts  or  tissue-wound  bouquets 
to  neighboring  houses.  She  was  fond  of 
taking  the  child  to  make  calls,  in  parlors 
dark  save  for  the  pallid  light  sifting  be 
tween  the  slats  of  green  blinds,  where  Miss 
Helena  would  exchange  silent  nods  of  grati 
fication  with  the  hostess  over  the  little  girl, 
who,  blank -eyed,  hands  folded,  regarded 
the  garlanded  carpet,  the  heavy  furniture, 
the  dusky  portraits.  What  should  she  have 
done,  Miss  Helena  would  wonder,  if  her 
sister  Lois's  child  had  been  a  boy?  In 
church  she  would  glance  complacently 
about  her  to  the  pews  of  less  fortunate 
neighbors,  where  sat  little  boys  avowedly 
miserable  in  their  Sabbath  collars,  and  with 
feet  that  despairingly  toed  in.  Her  little 
niece  sat  quite  quiet  through  the  long  ser- 
118 


THE    AFFECTION 

vice,  both  in  winter,  when  the  snow  lay 
piled  on  the  window-ledges  and  an  odor 
of  heated  furnace-pipes  came  up  through 
the  registers,  and  in  summer,  when  palm- 
leaf  fans  waved  in  languorous  unison,  as  if 
the  entire  congregation  were  being  rocked 
in  one  cradle,  and  the  only  sound,  save  the 
minister's  voice,  was  the  secular  cackling 
of  the  flock  of  hens  that  dwelt  next  door 
to  the  sanctuary. 

So  the  child  grew  into  a  school-girl,  serene 
in  a  philosophy  that  in  all  the  world  prob 
ably  no  two  souls  spoke  to  each  other  in 
untrammelled  outspokenness.  The  New 
England  year  held  too  many  pleasures  for 
indulgence  in  self-pity.  In  summer  there 
was  the  meadow  with  the  brook,  on  rainy 
days  the  treasure-house  of  the  attic,  in 
winter  the  rug  before  the  hearth,  with  the 
fire-light  flickering  over  the  foxed  pages  of 
The  Wide,  Wide  World,  and  the  house  cat 
submissive  to  endless  petting.  The  whim 
sical  smile  belied  the  clear  tranquillity  of 
the  girl's  eyes. 

119 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

When  the  time  for  Lois's  graduation  from 
the  academy  drew  near,  Miss  Helena  felt 
a  gratification  almost  guilty.  For  in  Put 
nam  the  "commencement  exercises"  per 
formed  the  double  duty  of  ending  the  school 
days  and  of  announcing  the  girl's  entrance 
into  the  village  society;  and  of  all  the  girls 
who  in  the  charming  self-consciousness  of 
their  first  long  gowns  would  mount  the 
school  platform,  Miss  Helena  knew  that  her 
Lois  would  be  the  fairest.  On  the  eventful 
day  Lois  appeared,  a  slim,  white  figure  be 
fore  the  background  of  black-coated  trus 
tees,  unfurled  her  manuscript,  and  in  a 
sweet  treble  proclaimed  a  series  of  the  ap 
proved  platitudes.  A  shaft  of  sunshine  fall 
ing  full  across  her  face  brought  out  in  sharp 
relief  each  sensitive  curve.  As  Miss  Helena, 
with  hands  tensely  clasped  on  her  lap,  look 
ed  at  the  girl,  she  saw  only  the  girl's  mother. 
How  great  was  the  affection  that  she  bore 
her  niece,  established  on  that  buried  love, 
piled  up  by  the  unselfish  devotion  of  the  act 
ual  relationship,  surmounted  by  the  capaci- 
120 


THE    AFFECTION 

ty  for  mother-love,  which  in  this  care  had 
found  its  sole  expression.  Lois  made  her 
parting  bow,  the  trustees  burst  into  chival 
rous  applause,  and  Lois  smiled  the  strange, 
tearful  smile  that  gave  distinction  to  her 
girlish  face.  It  was  the  mother  Lois's 
smile,  and  in  a  struggle  for  control  Miss 
Helena's  face  hardened  until  its  fine-drawn 
lines  became  austere.  It  was  at  that  mo 
ment  that  in  all  the  crowded  room  Lois 
sought  only  her  aunt's  face.  "Aunt  Hele 
na  doesn't  care,"  she  thought,  with  cruel, 
childish  decision,  and  all  the  following  fes 
tivities  became  as  hollow  as  festivities  can 
become  to  a  girl  of  seventeen. 

But  that  evening,  as  her  blushing  escort 
left  her  at  the  door,  she  was  full  of  the 
thought  that  maybe  it  was  not  well  man 
nered  to  show  pleasure  in  so  public  a  place 
as  the  academy ;  that  at  home,  in  the  dusk, 
maybe  Aunt  Helena  would  say  that  her 
niece  had  acquitted  herself  well.  A  new, 
wild  demand  for  expressed  approbation  had 
risen  in  the  girl's  breast;  her  passion  not 

121 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

only  for  giving  but  for  receiving  affection 
refused  to  accept  longer  the  quiescent,  child 
ish  philosophy.  Even  as  arbutus  and  anem 
ones  push  their  way  through  the  brown 
leaves  when  the  snow  is  scarcely  gone,  and 
attain  their  ethereal  perfection  before  other 
flowers  have  bloomed,  so  Lois  had  grown 
to  a  woman's  emotions  in  the  early  spring 
time  of  her  life.  Her  school-days  were,  in 
deed,  over. 

"Oh,  Aunt  Helena,  did  I  remember  to 
bow  to  them  all  —  the  principal  and  the 
trustees  and  the  audience?  I  can't  remem 
ber." 

"I  presume  so,  Lois." 

"  Was  my  dress  all  right?  I  was  so  afraid 
of  treading  on  it." 

"Lois,  my  child,  I  didn't  notice." 

"From  where  you  sat,  could  you  hear 
what  I  said?" 

"Really,  my  dear,  I  must  confess,"  with 
a  criminally  misleading  veracity,  "I  didn't 
listen  to  a  word  you  said." 

"  I  think  you  might  care  a  little,  Aunt 

122 


THE    AFFECTION 

Helena — just  a  little.  There's  nobody  else 
to  care,  but  I  thought  you  would.  And 
you  don't.  I'm  tired  of  being  so  lonely. 
You  never  have  loved  me.  I  don't  believe 
you  have  ever  loved  anybody.  Oh,  what 
shall  I  do  ?"  And  she  rushed  from  the  room. 
The  rebellious  child,  the  love-hungry  wom 
an,  had  spoken,  and  before  her,  as  before 
the  mother,  Miss  Helena,  uncomprehending 
and  uncomprehended,  was  mute. 

Late  that  night  Miss  Helena  stole  to  Lois's 
room  and  stood  in  the  patch  of  moonlight 
that  fell  in  a  tessellated  square  through  the 
small-paned  window.  Her  face  was  worn 
and  old,  but  to  Lois's  eyes,  dimmed  by 
frantic  weeping,  it  was  the  impassive  face 
that  she  remembered  from  babyhood  com 
ing  to  minister  to  her  bodily  wants.  "  I've 
brought  an  additional  blanket,  Lois,"  said 
Miss  Helena;  "the  air  is  growing  much 
cooler." 

"  Thank  you,  Aunt  Helena,"  Lois  replied; 
"you  ought  not  to  have  come  to  give  it  to 
me."  And  in  the  morning  they  took  up 
123 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

again,  as  if  unbroken,  the  thread  of  their 
lives;  but  now  it  was  not  a  woman  and  a 
girl,  but  two  women,  who  dwelt  in  the  old 
Lattimer  house. 

"You  will  be  at  a  loss,"  one  faithful, 
ignorant  old  teacher  had  warned  Lois,  "  how 
to  occupy  your  time  in  the  change  from 
assigned  lessons  to  an  indefinite  arrange 
ment  of  your  days.  For  instance,  there  will 
be  no  task  to  employ  the  moral-philoso 
phy  period.  My  dear,  you  must  cultivate 
habits  of  industry  for  yourself.  You  will 
find  them  a  great  resource."  Thus  Lois  en 
tered  the  Place  life  prepared  for  gaps  in  the 
duties  of  her  novitiate  which  she  must  fill 
by  her  own  devices;  but  before  she  was  a 
month  past  her  school-days  she  found  her 
self  as  component  a  part  of  the  system  as 
if  for  the  past  twenty  years  she  had  been  a 
woman  grown.  The  habit  of  their  days, 
gentle  as  the  meadow  brook,  closed  over 
her  as  conclusively  as  its  ripples  closed  over 
an  added  pebble.  The  tiny  commonplaces 
that  permeated  their  lives,  as  unobtrusively 
124 


THE    AFFECTION 

as  the  fragrance  of  the  opened  pot-pourri 
jar  filled  the  parlors,  were  in  turn  pretend 
ing  to  fill  full  her  waking  hours.  Even  in 
the  longest  summer  days  there  were  no  gaps. 
Each  moment  had  its  appointed  pretence  of 
labor.  There  were  the  tidying  of  the  rooms 
after  breakfast,  the  gathering,  with  graceful 
deliberation,  of  bouquets  for  the  vases,  the 
accomplishment  of  errands  at  a  neighbor's, 
the  setting  of  scrupulous  stitches  in  inter 
minable  seams.  After  three  o'clock  came 
the  inevitable  calls  from  villagers  with  a 
regal  command  of  time.  Tea-time  fol 
lowed,  with  its  shimmer  of  old  glass  and 
silver  on  the  waxed  mahogany;  then  the 
long,  slow  -  gathering  dusk,  with  silence 
broken  only  by  the  katydids  on  the  elms, 
while  Miss  Helena  sat  with  folded  hands 
by  the  window  and  gazed  meditatively 
down  a  vista  before  which  the  girl  of 
seventeen  stood  blindfolded.  In  the  still 
ness  of  those  evenings,  when  the  ticking 
of  the  slow-swaying  pendulum  of  the  great 
hall  clock  forced  itself  upon  Lois' s  con- 
125 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

sciousness,  she  fancied  that  with  a  similarly 
languid  measure  did  the  hearts  of  these 
people  beat.  While  for  herself — why,  even 
between  two  beats,  what  a  glory  of  action 
or  of  emotion  could  be  comprehended.  She 
tried  to  shut  from  her  ears  the  deliberate, 
passionless  sound. 

As  the  days  went  on  Lois  was  apparently 
as  tranquil  as  it  behooved  a  resident  of  the 
Place  to  be.  But  with  a  loneliness  like  that 
felt  in  association  with  childish  comrades 
whose  congeniality  is  outgrown,  she  re 
garded  her  bedroom  walls,  dotted  with  lit 
tle  gilt  garlands  of  flowers,  and  the  ward 
robe  where  bags  of  lavender  had  imme- 
morially  hung.  All  her  old  retreats  failed 
her.  She  had  loved  the  attic,  with  its 
single  bar  of  light  from  the  oval  window 
where  spiders  spun  in  the  leaded  panes; 
now  when  she  mounted  the  hollowed  stairs 
the  sense  of  mortality  hung  heavy  upon  her. 
There  were  the  brass-studded  trunks  that 
held  the  homespun  that  her  ancestress 
Phcebe  had  donned  in  the  days  when 
126 


THE    AFFECTION 

patriotic  women  scorned  British  finery,  and 
the  stiff  brocade  which  her  kinswoman 
Alice  had  worn  at  the  Inaugural  Ball. 
These  women,  too,  had  once  been  seventeen. 
Once  their  hair,  in  a  dull,  pliant  rope,  had 
reached  to  their  knees,  and  their  maiden 
bosoms  had  been  as  soft  and  as  white  as 
her  own.  With  all  the  strength  of  her  rest 
less,  lithe  body  she  resented  the  brevity  of 
their  lives,  the  emptiness  of  her  days.  The 
whole  house  exasperated  her  by  its  ac 
quiescence  in  what  it  had  been  and  what 
it  was  ordained  to  be.  The  companionable 
presence  which  it  had  assumed  to  Miss 
Helena  was  to  Lois  the  presence  of  an 
impassive  jailer.  Even  the  garden,  with 
flowers  that  bloomed  so  contentedly  be 
hind  the  stiff  box  borders,  was  a  mockery. 
She  hated  the  compact  line  of  shops  on  the 
Putnam  main  street  and  the  scalloped  line 
of  shade  thrown  on  the  sidewalk  by  their 
awnings.  She  hated  the  squeak  of  the  pea 
nut  man's  machine  on  the  corner  and  the 
little  puffs  of  smoke  from  the  rusty  tin 
127 


funnel  that  she  had  watched  since  a  child. 
She  hated  the  patient  teams,  driven  in  from 
the  country-side  and  standing  by  the  curb, 
the  reins  loose  on  their  backs,  the  linen 
lap-robes  tossed  over  the  dash-boards,  while 
the  drivers  "traded"  in  the  shops.  Even 
as  the  little  tasks,  so  inadequate  for  her 
abounding  vitality,  teased  her  vigorous 
young  body,  so  the  circumscribed  lines  of 
thought  teased  her  vigorous  young  mind. 
Hers  was  not  the  temper  that  demands 
agreement  —  good,  stiff  contradiction  she 
would  have  delighted  in ;  but  any  condition 
at  variance  with  the  Place  standards,  from 
a  late  dinner  to  a  ritual  not  locally  affect 
ed,  was  not  a  matter  for  partisan  discus 
sion,  but  for  unquestioning,  calm  dismissal. 
With  her  wild,  young  soul  consumed  in 
smothered  revolt,  she  went  through  the 
serene  programme  of  each  day. 

The  heat  of  midsummer  settled  over  the 

Place,  bringing  a  surfeit  of  warmth  scarcely 

ungrateful  to  temperate  pulses  and  to  wintry 

memories  that  would  yield  place  only  to  ap- 

128 


THE   AFFECTION 

prehensions  of  the  next  season's  severity. 
But  to  Lois  the  heat  seemed  fairly  palpable, 
and  she  crept  about  the  house  as  if  under 
the  burden  of  an  actual  weight.  With  her 
cheek  upon  her  bedroom  window-sill,  she 
sought  to  catch  a  breeze  too  timid  to  enter. 
As  if  it  were  the  heat  made  audible,  there 
came  to  her  the  creak  of  two  rocking-chairs, 
as  her  aunt  and  Miss  Maria  Hale,  cool  in 
frilled  cambric,  wafting  a  fragrance  of  fresh 
ly  sprinkled  lavender  water,  swayed  and 
communed  together  on  the  porch. 

"  And  so  our  new  minister's  son  is  to  come 
home  to-day?" 

"Yes.  I  hope  we  shall  find  him  an  ac 
quisition  to  the  Place." 

"  His  father  seems  very  proud  of  him." 

"And  Mrs.  Hooper,  too.  Nathan  is  the 
apple  of  her  eye." 

"Let  us  hope  that  he  is  worthy  of  such 
parents." 

"  I  hear  that  he  graduated  with  hon 
ors." 

"Will  he  study  for  the  ministry?" 

9  I2Q 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

"I've  been  told  that  he  has  no  leanings 
in  that  direction." 

"Indeed?" 

"Yes,  and  that  he  has  been  given  a  re 
ward  of  merit — as  I  understand  it — that 
enables  him  to  carry  on  his  studies  abroad 
for  a  year." 

"Abroad?    Most  peculiar." 

"Is  it  not?" 

Then  the  voices  drifted  off  into  the  long 
whir  of  a  locust. 

That  evening  a  warm,  fragrance-bearing 
wind  sprang  up.  It  brought  no  freshness, 
but  its  wild,  sweet  breath  seemed  to  mad 
den  the  trees ;  they  waved  their  branches  as 
if  in  fever.  The  turbulence  drove  the  ladies 
within  doors;  but  the  restlessness  of  the 
elms  had  been  infused  in  Lois's  blood.  In 
the  velvet  blackness  of  their  shade  she 
paced  to  and  fro,  waving  her  round,  white 
arms  in  the  air  with  all  the  vague  yearning 
of  the  branches  tossing  overhead.  Were 
they,  like  herself,  rooted  here,  and,  like  her 
self,  mad  to  escape  from  this  little  byway 
130 


THE    AFFECTION 

into  the  broad  highway  of  life?  A  great, 
warm  gust  caught  up  the  fallen  leaves  and 
rustled  them  forward  on  tiptoe  across  the 
grass.  With  arms  outstretched,  Lois  yield 
ed  her  supple  body  to  its  impulse.  As 
inarticulate  and  as  storm-driven  as  they, 
she  swept  forward  through  the  darkness — 
and  found  herself  clasped  in  the  strong 
arms  of  a  man,  and  her  heart  pressed  close 
to  one  that  beat  as  wildly  as  her  own. 

It  was  almost  a  gratification  to  Lois  Lat- 
timer  and  Nathan  Hooper  that  their  desire 
for  an  immediate  marriage  was  met  with 
sedate,  rational  disapproval  by  those  in 
authority.  To  the  lovers,  the  Place  had 
no  part  nor  lot  in  their  love.  It  was  of  so 
different  an  order,  they  believed,  from  any 
emotion  that  could  ever  have  been  felt  there, 
that  their  love  would  have  surrendered  the 
very  nature  that  made  it  so  peculiarly  their 
own  by  its  adaptation  to  the  sanction  of 
the  Place.  Mingled,  too,  with  the  dignity 
of  their  passion  was  the  exultation  of  two 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

naughty  children  breaking  loose  from  too 
strict  a  guardianship.  In  an  unacknowl 
edged  spirit  of  mischief  they  chose  the 
prayer-meeting  night  for  their  elopement 
— if  elopement  it  were  to  steal  down  the 
deserted  village  street  and  away  on  a  de 
serted  local  train  to  the  village  where  they 
were  married.  Then,  with  a  glory  of  hap 
piness  in  their  faces,  they  put  Putnam  be 
hind  them  and  took  their  way  across  the 
ocean  that  was  blue  for  them  alone,  to  Italy, 
where  for  them  alone  the  marbles  gleamed, 
the  unveiled  sky  revealed  its  immeasurable 
•depth,  and  the  slim,  fountain-like  poplars 
raised  their  aspiring  branches. 

Across  a  gulf  wider  than  any  ocean  they 
wrote  back  to  Putnam  Place  begging  its 
forgiveness,  but  with  so  riotous  an  under 
current  of  joy  that  any  minds  less  serious 
than  those  they  addressed  would  have  real 
ized  how  indifferent  a  matter  this  forgive 
ness  was  to  the  delinquents.  The  hearts 
left  behind,  however,  were  not  of  the  stuff 
to  detect  implications ;  nor,  from  the  hush- 
132 


THE    AFFECTION 

ed,  colorless  atmosphere  of  their  lives,  to 
conceive  of  the  wealth  that  their  children 
had  found  in  a  world  of  color  and  form  that 
was  the  fit  expression  of  their  love.  In 
Putnam  Place  it  was  deemed  that  the  wel 
fare  and  the  cheer  of  the  young  husband  and 
wife  were  hanging  on  the  words  that  would 
come  from  their  New  England  home;  and 
lest  rash  disobedience  should  pass  without 
due  admonition,  the  messages  of  love  and 
forgiveness  were  filmed  beneath  a  frost  of 
reserve  and  reproach.  So  the  two  lovers, 
whose  daily  speech  was  full  of  expressed 
tenderness,  could  not,  or,  indeed,  did  not 
attempt  to,  interpret  the  heart-brimming  af 
fection  concealed  beneath  the  stiff  phrases 
from  the  chill,  gray  land  of  their  birth. 
"They  do  not  forgive  us,  really,"  said  Lois. 
"  They  think  that  they  forgive  us,  because 
it  is  right  to  forgive,  and  they  wish  to  do 
what  is  right."  "What  can  they  know  of 
forgiveness,"  responded  Nathan,  "for  what 
can  they  know  of  love?"  And  they  kissed 
each  other  and  lived  on  a  wondrous  dream 
133 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

in  an  enchanted  land,  as  perfectly  sur 
rounded  by  beauty  as  if  their  two  souls 
were  enclosed  in  a  bubble,  radiant  and  iri 
descent,  a  fairy  sphere. 

But,  like  a  bubble,  this  life  could  not  last. 
The  husband  sickened  of  a  fever,  and  the 
child,  born  after  his  father's  death,  died 
after  his  presence  had  brought  to  the  widow 
but  a  few  months'  respite  from  her  grief. 
Each  day  her  grief-dazed  eyes  looked  out 
upon  the  abundant,  glowing  Italian  life. 
Its  lush  beauty  mocked  her.  Could  she 
but  escape  its  lavish,  joyous  comeliness 
she  might  find  comfort.  She  would  hide 
in  a  bare,  gray  room.  But  of  what  use? 
From  the  window  she  looked  out  upon  a 
saffron  road  winding  up  through  hoar  olive 
groves  to  a  sapphire  sky.  The  woman  who 
tended  her  hugged  a  bambino  with  little 
Nathan's  lambent  eyes.  The  smiling  land 
was  hateful  beyond  endurance,  and  she  re- 
crossed  the  ocean,  day  by  day  looking  out 
with  sorrow-stricken  eyes  upon  the  steely 
billows 


THE    AFFECTION 

She  went  to  a  seaport  city,  the  home  of 
friends  whom  she  and  Nathan  had  known 
in  that  golden  honeymoon  now  so  far  in 
the  past.  The  town  was  so  bleak  and  ugly 
and  grim,  that  for  the  first  few  months  Lois 
thought  that  here,  without  sacrilege  to  her 
sorrow,  she  could  go  on  with  her  life.  With 
her  grief  as  companion,  she  would  busy 
herself  in  the  good  works  that  women  find 
to  do.  But  far  more  cutting  than  the 
sunny  indifference  of  Italy  was  the  insist 
ence  of  this  indomitable  world  that  the 
dead  past  bury  its  dead.  With  its  come 
dies  and  tragedies  sardonically  intermin 
gled,  this  world  rebuked  her  for  her  absorp 
tion  in  the  irreparable  past,  and  the  while 
she  faintly  appreciated  its  piteous  heroism, 
a  strange  jealousy  for  her  grief  sprang  up. 
Each  day  seemed  to  bring  to  her  sorrow 
a  fresh  indignity.  She  felt  the  short,  vital 
epoch  of  her  life  retreating  from  her,  and 
lest  it  should  be  affected  by  the  alterations 
which,  she  vaguely  apprehended,  formed 
the  daily  life  beyond  the  sheltered  Place, 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

she  hoarded  even  more  devoutly  the  experi 
ences  which,  although  they  had  now  become 
memories,  still  formed  the  chief  activities 
of  her  life.  Yet  every  hour  brought  home 
to  her  the  realization  that  the  world's  life 
could  not  pause,  as  her  own  had  paused, 
and  sit  down  with  its  grief.  But  courage 
like  this  was  not  for  the  fragment  of  her 
heart  left  unburied  from  two  Italian  graves ; 
her  grief  was  greater  than  herself,  her  fut 
ure  lay  in  her  past.  All  that  she  now  asked 
was  that  she  might  live  out  the  remainder 
of  her  stem-snapped  life,  unharassed  by  a 
sense  of  the  world's  fresh  impulses  and  ex 
periences.  She  yearned  for  immutability. 
And  so  she  returned  to  Putnam  Place. 

She  found  it  even  as  she  had  left  it.  It 
would  have  required  many  decades  to  alter 
the  currents  in  that  untroubled  shoal;  and 
Lois  had  been  absent  scarcely  two  years. 
There  were  the  same  cracks  in  the  pave 
ment,  with  the  same  bunches  of  grass  push 
ed  through.  There  was  the  same  form  of 
a  Greek  vase  in  the  branches  of  "the  Hale 
136 


THE    AFFECTION 

elm."  And  at  the  parlor  window  sat  Miss 
Helena,  gazing  far  down  the  vista  of  the 
past. 

"Aunt  Helena,"  asked  Lois,  "the  Place 
is  my  home,  after  all.  May  I  come?" 

"  My  darling,"  said  Miss  Helena,  and  Lois 
smiled.  But  now  her  eyes  were  not  tran 
quil  as  in  childhood,  nor  rebellious  as  in 
girlhood,  nor  grief -dazed  as  through  widow 
hood.  The  prophecy  of  old  Madam  Hale 
had  come  true;  the  smile  and  the  tear- 
washed  eyes  belonged  together  now,  and  it 
seemed  as  if,  even  as  spring  flowers  fade 
before  summer-time,  Lois' s  destiny  had  been 
fulfilled. 

It  was  very  still  that  summer  in  Putnam 
Place.  Often  through  the  long  afternoons 
the  ticking  of  the  tall  clock  dominated  every 
sound.  With  a  wonderment  at  her  former 
resentment,  Lois  listened  and  found  its  lan 
guid  measure  accorded  with  the  rhythm 
of  her  days.  The  old  house  that  had  once 
seemed  a  jail  held  her  now  with  the  ten 
derness  of  a  nurse.  The  silent,  fragrant 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

garden  breathed  forth  peace.  Here,  where 
the  stream  ceased  to  press  forward,  but 
swirled  quietly  within  unchanged  boun 
daries,  she  might  dream  of  the  past  with  no 
torturing  sense  of  its  recession.  Here  in 
the  land  of  memories  time  seemed  to  have 
lost  its  sway.  The  only  events  capable 
of  motion  were  the  events  of  the  past. 
Through  the  prolonged  dusks,  while  one 
by  one  the  stars  came  out  behind  the  elm 
branches,  she  would  recall  each  moment  of 
that  ecstatic  union,  from  the  first  embrace 
beneath  the  elm-trees  on  that  midsummer 
night.  In  the  steadfastness  of  the  life 
about  her  Lois  had  at  last  found  balm  for 
her  wounds. 

With  an  abnegation  which  Lois  learned 
to  accept  with  her  strange  smile,  these 
people  whom  she  had  deemed  cold  of  heart 
annexed  their  lives  to  her  own,  found  their 
spirits'  zenith  in  her  serenity,  their  decline 
in  her  sorrow.  She  and  her  aunt  spent 
days  together  in  the  long  communions  of 
women  whose  experiences  lie  in  the  back- 
138 


THE    AFFECTION 

ground  of  their  lives.  Nathan's  parents 
came  to  her  and  poured  out  upon  her  alone 
the  wealth  hoarded  in  their  fiery,  snow 
bound  affections  for  their  son,  their  son's 
child,  their  son's  wife.  Each  of  those  blind 
letters,  written  by  Nathan  and  Lois  when 
their  eyes  were  holden  in  the  glow  of  their 
own  happiness,  did  the  trembling  old  fin 
gers  bring  out,  again  to  pore  over  the  un 
comprehending  messages.  Fragments  from 
Italian  experiences  which  Lois  had  let  slip 
in  the  richer  store  of  her  memories  she 
found  gave  fresh  courage  to  these  famished 
hearts.  "  I  have  lived  my  life  twice  over," 
Lois  smiled,  when  with  an  eager  tender 
ness  they  joined  in  the  commemoration  of  * 
the  second  anniversary  of  her  wedding-day, 
"once  by  myself,  once  in  your  affection." 
Then  as  she  saw  the  sorrow  frozen  on  Miss 
Helena's  face  in  a  rigidity  which  coming 
years  could  not  soften,  "  Poor  Aunt  Helena," 
she  said,  "dear  Aunt  Helena." 

So  she  died.     But  for  Miss  Helena  there 
remained  the  rest  of  life  to  be  lived. 


THE    QUARREL 


OTABLE  among  the  unwrit 
ten  laws  of  Putnam  Place  was 
one  which  pronounced  that  in 
paying  a  visit  across  the  street 
the  conventions  must  be  ob 
served.  To  drop  in  on  a  neighbor  across  an 
adjacent  yard  was  a  manifest  informality, 
but  the  roadway  was  a  sort  of  Rubicon 
"whose  passage  required  greater  elaboration 
of  costume  than  was  represented  by  shawls 
and  slippers. 

This  edict  might  have  proved  especially 
inconvenient  for  Miss  Lattimer  and  Mrs. 
Hooper  had  they  not  had  their  expedient. 
For  their  friendship  was  bound  by  ties  of 
common  experience  of  love  and  of  loss  in  the 
years  gone  by ;  and  even  as  they  had  then 
140 


THE    QUARREL 

consulted  with  each  other  in  matters  of 
moment,  so  now  they  found  comfort  in 
discussing  the  trivialities  which  contributed 
so  pleasantly  to  fill  the  long,  quiet  afternoon 
of  their  lives.  But  even  in  those  days  of 
long  ago,  when  Mr.  Hooper  was  the  newly 
called  minister,  and  his  doctrines  and  his 
wife's  manners  were  yet  under  considera 
tion,  the  ladies  had  solved  the  problem  of 
their  intercourse  by  the  utilization  of  the 
meadow  which  lay  across  the  end  of  the 
Place.  Each  household  had  a  little  gate 
cut  in  the  meadow  fence,  and  on  the  mead 
ow  side  of  its  pickets  each  lady  of  each 
house  scuttled  to  and  fro  without  trans 
gression  of  the  roadway  code.  So  that 
close  to  the  fence  was  worn  a  little  path, 
traversed  in  bygone  years  both  in  joy  and 
in  anguish,  traversed  later  in  all  the  petty 
interests  which  serve  to  occupy  the  lives 
of  those  from  whom  the  flood-tide  of  ac 
tivities  and  emotions  has  receded. 

There  was,   nevertheless,   an  unphrased 
understanding  that  this  informality  should 
141 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

never  transcend  a  certain  degree  of  cer 
emonial.  Theoretically  this  consideration 
for  the  dignity  of  each  other's  personality 
added  the  final  charm  to  their  intimacy, 
practically  it  served  more  effectively  than 
any  brusqueness  to  estrange  the  best  of 
friends. 

The  trouble  began  on  one  fall  day  when 
Mrs.  Hooper  betook  herself  and  her  week's 
mending,  via  the  meadow -path,  to  the 
Lattimer  house  with  the  intent  of  "spend 
ing  the  morning."  Thereupon  her  hostess 
promptly  produced  her  hemstitching  and 
sat  and  rocked  the  hours  away  as  if  she  had 
designed  that  particular  morning  for  that 
particular  purpose;  whereas  she  had  laid 
out  mathematically  exact  plans  to  spend 
those  very  hours  in  "going  through"  the 
attic,  and  had  expected  by  noon  to  be  just 
so  far  and  no  farther  in  that  dread  rite. 
In  fact,  at  the  very  moment  of  Mrs.  Hooper's 
arrival,  the  "extra  woman"  was  stationed 
in  the  kitchen,  armed  with  mop  and  pail, 
about  to  charge  up  the  stairs.  But  she 
142 


THE    QUARREL 

was  ordered  to  beat  a  hasty  retreat,  and,  as 
has  been  related,  Miss  Lattimer  busied  her 
self  with  untimely  hemstitching.  Had  the 
manoeuvre  been  successful,  it  would  have 
been  forgotten.  The  memorable  catastro 
phe  was  all  the  fault  of  the  judge.  He, 
being  himself,  failed  to  grasp  the  inward 
ness  of  the  situation  upon  his  return  at 
noon. 

"Well,  Helena,"  he  blandly  remarked  to 
his  sister,  "and  so  the  attic's  all  done!  A 
tremendous  morning's  work,  I  expect? 
We're  to  be  congratulated,  Mrs.  Hooper." 

After  that,  of  course,  although  every 
thing  that  could  be  said  was  well  said,  there 
was  little  to  say.  The  fact  remained.  And 
when  Mrs.  Hooper  waddled  her  way  back 
through  the  grassy  path,  it  was  with  a 
flushed  face,  compressed  lips,  and  the  de 
termination  that  it  should  be  a  long  time 
before  "  Helener  Lattima"  should  again  be 
given  the  opportunity  thus  to  embarrass 
her;  while  in  the  yet  unransacked  attic  her 
friend  was  pondering  the  lack  of  considera- 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

tion  shown  by  "  Agather  Hoopa"  in  coming 
on  that  of  all  mornings. 

But  as  other  mornings  passed  with  no 
renewed  informalities,  Miss  Helena  grew  dis 
tressed.  After  all,  it  was  by  her  brother's 
inadvertent  discourtesy  that  her  friend,  un 
der  the  Lattimer  roof,  had  taken  offence. 
Therefore  it  was  from  her  side  that  apologies, 
in  some  form,  should  come.  But  for  this 
uncongenial  errand  she  could  not  persuade 
herself  to  employ  the  little  path;  instead, 
bonneted  and  gloved,  she  rang  the  Hooper 
front-door  bell.  "I  will  ask  what  is  the 
hour  of  the  prayer-meeting  for  this  week," 
said  she  to  herself.  "  I  can't  think  of  any 
thing  else  to  say,  and  if  Agather  is  ready 
to  make  up  she  can  show  it  by  her  answer." 

"It  is  at  half -past  seven,  as  it  has  been 
for  the  last  twenty-eight  years,"  returned 
Mrs.  Hooper,  conclusively.  At  that  reply, 
churlish  Miss  Lattimer,  her  compunctions 
satisfied,  her  propitiatory  impulse  exhaust 
ed,  departed  with  her  nose  as  high  in  the 
air  as  Mrs.  Hooper's  own. 
144 


THE    QUARREL 

However,  it  so  chanced  that  either  in  her 
agitation,  or  because  of  the  iciness  of  her 
friend's  manner,  Miss  Helena  picked  up, 
as  she  went,  a  mink  muff,  under  the  im 
pression  that  it  was  her  own.  There  is 
an  unquestionable  family  likeness  in  mink 
muffs,  and  under  ordinary  circumstances  a 
mistake  in  identity  would  be  both  expli 
cable  and  excusable.  But  to  Miss  Helena 
it  was  a  horrid  sight  which  presented  itself 
when,  on  opening  her  muff -box,  she  found 
it  already  occupied,  and,  in  consequence, 
twin  mink  muffs  side  by  side.  Then  she 
remembered  that  she  had  carried  no  muff 
on  her  diplomatic  mission.  Obviously  it 
was  Mrs.  Hooper's  property  that  she  had 
borne  away.  Flushing  with  mortification 
at  her  carelessness,  she  wrapped  the  sus 
piciously  acquired  muff  in  tissue  -  paper, 
and,  with  a  note  of  apology,  dismissed  it 
by  her  Jane. 

"And  what  did  Mrs.  Hoopa  say,  Jane?" 
she  asked,  on  the  maid's  return. 

"  Well,  Miss  Lattima,  she  didn't  say  much 
145 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

of  anything  to  me.  But  I  heard  her  say  to 
Mr.  Hoopa,  '  I  suppose  one  must  make  al 
lowances  for  poor  Helener ;  all  the  Lattimas 
are  so  absent-minded."1 

"That  will  do,  Jane.  And  remember, 
please,  that  it  is  quite  unnecessary  ever  to 
repeat  remarks  not  addressed  to  yourself," 
said  Miss  Helena,  in  the  stately  manner 
usually  laid  away  in  camphor  with  her 
black  velvet  gown.  "Jane,"  she  called,  as 
the  drooping  maid  retired,  "for  fear  you 
should  have  formed  a  mistaken  impression, 
perhaps  I  ought  to  tell  you  that  not  one 
of  our  family  has  ever  been  known  to  be  in 
the  least  absent-minded." 

After  the  muff  episode  the  little  gates  no 
longer  swung  on  their  creaking  hinges,  and 
the  first  snowfall  of  winter  lay  undisturbed 
on  the  path.  Over  her  own  mink  muff  each 
lady  bowed  ceremoniously  to  the  other. 

But  a  change  came  in  the  fortunes  of  war. 
In  the  discouraging  drizzle  of  a  March  morn 
ing  Miss  Forrester  and  Mrs.  Hooper  were 
trotting  home  together  from  a  meeting  in 
146 


THE    QUARREL 

the  "church  parlors,"  where  they  had  been 
straining  their  backs  and  their  tempers  in 
packing  a  missionary  box.  Mrs.  Hooper's 
remarks  tended  towards  pessimistic  gener 
alities  upon  inaccuracy.  "  If  a  person  said 
that  she  would  send  you  a  coat  for  a  boy 
of  fifteen,  and  sent  a  skirt  for  a  girl  of 
twelve,  shouldn't  you  say  that  it  showed 
a  lack  of  Christian  discipline?"  she  asked, 
shaking  her  umbrella  emphatically. 

"  Why,  what  is  that  queer  white  lettering 
on  the  inside  of  your  umbrella?"  exclaimed 
her  companion. 

Regardless  of  the  rain,  the  two  bent  over 
the  inscription.  It  read,  "This  umbrella 
has  been  stqlen  from  John  Lattimer,  Put 
nam  Place." 

"  How  odd!"  said  Miss  Forrester,  gravely. 
"That  must  be  one  of  the  judge's  office 
umbrellas  that  you  have.  I  remember  he 
told  me  once  that  they  were  always  being 
taken — by  other  lawyers,  I  mean." 

"All  the  umbrellas  were  together  in  the 
rack  at  the  church,"  quavered  Mrs.  Hooper. 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

Then,  rallying  her  forces  lest  she  should 
acknowledge  herself  at  fault,  she  declared, 
"So  it  would  seem  that  Judge  Lattimer 
considers  any  one  who  might  take  his  um 
brella  by  pure  accident  as  a  criminal.  In 
fact" — with  hauteur — "he  brands  me  as  a 
thief!" 

"  Oh  no,"  urged  her  companion,  "  it's  only 
that  he's  a  lawyer." 

"Of  course,"  puffed  the  choleric  Mrs. 
Hooper,  "I  shall  never  give  this  a  second 
thought,  but  it  is  nothing  short  of  insult 
ing."  It  was  only  by  a  compromise  with 
her  peaceably  inclined  husband  that  the 
umbrella  was  sent  to  its  owner  with  an 
apologetic  instead  of  a  belligerent  message. 
Yet,  obviously,  the  umbrella  incident  set 
tled  the  absent-minded  score. 

Spring  came.  Along  the  little  path  the 
soggy  snow  sank  into  the  black  earth,  and 
vivid  green  points  began  to  prick  out  in  tiny 
tufts;  but  from  gate  to  gate  the  path  lay 
unmarked  by  any  footprints.  Then  the 
restless  tide  of  battle — not  permitted  to  rest 
148 


THE    QUARREL 

with  the  Lattimer  cause  in  the  ascendant — 
turned. 

There  was  a  hen  of  Mrs.  Hooper's,  a  speck 
led  creature  with  horny,  yellow  claws.  Its 
manner  was  one  of  fussy  deliberation,  as 
if  it  counted  each  of  its  jerky  motions.  It 
was  hard  to  believe  that  it  did  not  say 
"One!"  when  it  extended  its  claw  above 
Miss Lat timer's  mignonette  bed,  and  "Two !" 
when  it  extracted  from  the  newly  turned 
soil  the  tender  green  sprouts.  At  the  sound 
of  Miss  Helena's  voice  its  habit  was  to  bus 
tle  across  the  road  with  all  the  excitement 
of  a  grievance.  Miss  Lattimer  could  not 
"abide"  that  hen. 

Once  when  she  happened  to  be  stand 
ing  at  the  side  door  she  saw  the  hen,  with 
fresh  decision  of  purpose,  removing  a  row 
of  recently  inserted  nasturtium  seeds.  At 
this  spectacle  Miss  Helena,  with  a  rhythm 
unconsciously  timed  to  the  hen's  own, 
stooped,  picked  up  a  stone,  and  threw  it. 
Considering  the  provocation,  this  act  was 
scarcely  more  than  a  commonplace;  but 
149 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

that,  with  the  same  precision  which  had 
marked  the  movements  of  the  hen,  the  stone 
should  strike  that  speckled  body,  was  an 
event  unparalleled.  But  so  it  was,  and  the 
hen,  after  a  whirl  no  more  excited  than 
when  nothing  was  the  matter,  lay  down, 
a  ruffled  heap  of  feathers,  quite  dead.  With 
a  shriek  Miss  Lattimer  turned  and  ran  up 
stairs,  locked  herself  in  her  room,  and  with 
all  the  blood-guiltiness  of  a  murderer  fell  to 
washing  her  hands. 

An  hour  afterwards  she  emerged,  pale 
but  calm,  and  with  a  letter  and  a  two-dol 
lar  bill  in  her  hand.  She  called  the  maid. 
"Jane,"  said  she,  "take  a  tray — the  large 
one  with  the  painted  wreath — place  on  it 
the  hen  which  is  lying  in  the  nasturtium- 
bed,  cover  it  with  a  napkin,  and  carry  it 
with  this  note  and  money  to  Mrs.  Hoopa." 
She  applied  the  smelling-salts.  "  No,  Jane, 
not  a  word." 

Miss  Helena,  waiting  in  the  shaded  par 
lor,  laid  aside  the  knitting  from  her  trem 
bling  fingers.  Jane's  returning  step  sound- 
is0 


THE    QUARREL 

ed  along  the  hall  and  approached  the  door 
way.  Miss  Helena  looked  up.  Jane  was 
yet  bearing  the  tray  and  its  burden.  On 
the  napkin  lay  another  note,  as  formally 
addressed  as  had  been  her  own.  It  read: 
"  Mrs.  Hooper  begs  Miss  Lattimer's  accept 
ance  of  this  hen.  Enclosed  please  find  the 
two  dollars  which  Miss  Lattimer  sent  in  pay 
ment.  Mrs.  Hooper  is  not  a  poultry -fancier." 
Miss  Helena  gave  an  hysterical  sob  as 
these  words  conjured  up  the  picture  of  her 
friend,  a  narrow  strip  of  white  stocking 
showing  between  her  lifted  black  skirt  and 
Congress  gaiters,  throwing  crumbs  to  her 
fat  Plymouth  Rocks.  But,  indeed,  this  was 
no  time  for  levity.  Matters  were  at  a  crisis. 
An  opportunity  for  peace  had  come  and 
gone.  Had  Mrs.  Hooper  been  willing  to 
accept  the  overture  and  free  her  friend 
from  indebtedness,  each  might  have  issued 
from  the  feud  at  least  with  self-respect 
intact,  although  with  a  tattered  bond  of 
friendship.  As  it  stood,  the  outcome  of  the 
hen  casualty  was  that  Miss  Helena  was 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

"under  obligations"  to  her  friend  to  the 
extent  of  that  speckled  body  under  the 
napkin.  "Take  it  away,  Jane,"  she  said, 
motioning  towards  the  tray,  "and  bury  it 
where  it  fell." 

All  summer  long  the  grass  grew  so  high 
in  the  little  path,  where  before  it  had  been 
worn  flat,  that  long,  feathery  spears  pressed 
through  the  picket  fence.  The  latches  of 
the  gates  grew  rusty.  The  quarrel  between 
the  Lattimer  and  the  Hooper  households 
was  developing  into  one  of  the  accepted 
situations  of  the  Place. 

Then  on  a  September  afternoon  Miss  Lat 
timer  went  forth  to  pay  calls  upon  certain 
friends  whose  misfortune  rather  than  whose 
fault  it  was  to  dwell  outside  the  Place. 
Usually  Mrs.  Hooper  and  she  had  joined 
forces  on  these  excursions,  and  as  Miss  He 
lena  collected  her  lace  handkerchief,  her 
gloves,  and  her  card-case,  she  was  oppressed 
by  a  sense  of  loneliness  all  the  more  bitter 
because  only  half  acknowledged.  She  found 
herself  regretting  her  "obligation,"  only 
152 


THE    QUARREL 

because  it  debarred  her  from  making  any 
advances  towards  a  reconciliation.  Her 
lips  quivered  as  she  put  on  her  bonnet, 
approved  by  Mrs.  Hooper  with  the  com 
ment,  "It's  not  everybody  who  can  wear 
silver  gray  next  her  face."  Soon  the  in 
terminable  New  England  winter,  with  its 
curtailed  days,  its  long-drawn,  lamp -lit 
evenings,  would  be  upon  them.  How  could 
she  endure  those  weeks  of  incarceration 
without  the  accustomed  neighborly  offices? 
With  a  fresh  pang  she  recalled  the  old 
comradeship  which  had  doubled  the  pleas 
ures  and  shared  the  griefs  of  the  bygone 
years.  Gradually  the  realization  was  forced 
upon  her  that  her  love  for  Mrs.  Hooper  was 
not  neighborly,  but  sisterly,  and  she  was 
seized  with  a  great  yearning  again  to  press 
that  soft,  wrinkled  cheek.  Wherefore,  as 
she  paused  at  the  door  to  raise  her  parasol, 
and  saw  Mrs.  Hooper  across  the  way,  she 
took  especial  pains  to  bow  the  bow  which 
never,  save  in  warfare,  is  the  salute  between 
inhabitants  of  the  Place. 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

The  house  where  she  first  sent  in  her  card 
was  one  in  whose  consideration  she  and  Mrs. 
Hooper  had  spent  many  an  hour  of  pleasant 
ly  disparaging  conversation.  There  was  a 
casual  distribution  of  its  windows  and  an 
ill  -  regulated  air  about  its  hallways  that 
differentiated  it  conclusively  from  Place  ar 
chitecture.  Feeling  a  stranger  in  a  strange 
land,  Miss  Lattimer  sat  primly  on  the  edge 
of  a  deep  Oriental  couch,  stirring  tentatively 
with  the  flat  souvenir  spoon  the  tea  which 
her  hostess  had  proffered  her  in  an  octag 
onal  cup.  The  conversation  languished. 
The  friendship  between  the  households  was 
one  of  the  heritages  from  the  past  genera 
tion,  and  because  of  its  incongruity  was 
cherished  only  the  more  scrupulously  in  the 
present.  But  after  the  few  minutes  which 
sufficed  for  the  despatch  of  the  subjects  of 
congenial  interest  there  was  a  pause. 

"I  heard  such  a  funny  story  the  other 
day,"  suggested  the  hostess,  in  desperation. 
"A  lady  had  only  one  maid,  and  her  hus 
band  urged  that  on  days  when  there  was 


THE    QUARREL 

extra  work — such  as  washing  and  baking 
day — she  should  hire  another  woman  to  do 
the  work  about  the  house.  For  a  long 
while  his  entreaties  were  of  no  avail.  But 
finally  he  persuaded  her  to  engage  a  com 
petent  person.  And  what  do  you  suppose 
was  the  result  ?  At  breakfast  -  time  he 
noticed  that  his  wife  looked  wretchedly 
fagged.  When  he  questioned  her,  what  do 
you  think  he  discovered  as  the  result  of 
insisting  upon  his  wife's  having  an  ad 
ditional  helper?  Why,  Mrs.  Hooper  had 
risen  at  four  o'clock  and  had  worked  like 
a  slave,  because,  she  said,  she  couldn't  bear 
to  have  an  outsider  come  in  and  find  her 
house  in  disorder." 

"Is  it  Mrs.  Hoopa  of  Putnam  Place  of 
whom  you  are  speaking?"  asked  Miss  Lat- 
timer,  setting  down  the  cup. 

"Did  I  let  the  name  slip  out?  I  didn't 
mean  to.  But  as  you  and  she  have  dropped 
all  your  old  intimacy,  I  suppose  you  don't 
mind  sharing  a  good-natured  laugh  over 
her  oddities." 

'55 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

"  Her  oddities?"  Miss  Lattimer  rose.  "  She 
has  no — oddities.  She  is  not  at  all  the  sort 
of  person  who  should  be  considered  as  sub 
ject  to  —  oddities.  It  is  true,  I  have  not 
seen  her  of  late  as  frequently  as  —  as  I 
should  have  wished.  But  each  of  us  is 
quite  capable  of  maintaining  her  regard  for 
the  other  during  any  separation  brought 
about  by  slight  circumstances  of  which  Mrs. 
Hoopa  and  I  have  a  perfect  understanding. 
And  I  can  assure  you,  Mrs.  Morgan,  that 
you  are  quite  mistaken  in  regarding  her  as 
a  person  with — oddities." 

She  sailed  from  the  room,  and  in  tri 
umph  entered  her  dear  old  Place.  She  had 
squared  the  old  account ;  she  was  free  to  take 
the  initiative.  With  the  color  rising  in  her 
cheeks,  she  went  to  the  little  gate  and 
tried  to  lift  the  latch.  At  first  the  rust  held 
it  fast,  then  it  fell  with  a  clatter.  As  her 
eyes  were  downcast  while  she  picked  her 
way  past  a  clump  of  burdocks,  she  did  not 
see  Mrs.  Hooper  come  to  the  window  at  the 
noise  of  the  broken  latch,  nor  the  Hooper 
156 


THE    QUARREL 

II 

side  door  fly  open.  She  did  not  know  that 
Mrs.  Hooper,  regardless  of  black  silk  skirt, 
was  plunging  through  the  tangled  grasses 
towards  her  until  she  felt  herself  clasped  in 
her  friend's  arms. 

"Oh,  Helenerl"  said  Mrs.  Hooper. 

"Oh,  A  gather !"  said  Miss  Lattimer. 


A    TIME    TO    SEW 


IT  was  said  by  hardy  folk  who 
plodded  through  the  miry 
roadway  of  Putnam  Place 
jthat  the  winter  was  "break- 
ling  up."  But  so  laggard  was 
the  spring  that  to  house-bound  folk  this 
confidence,  based  merely  upon  the  analogy 
of  recurring  seasons  in  the  past,  seemed 
resting  on  a  miracle  not  only  beyond  belief 
but  beyond  comprehension.  Theirs  were  the 
faces  that  looked — through  window-panes 
which,  if  not  framed  in  a  blue  ledge  of  snow, 
were  overhung  with  icicles  or  spattered  by 
hail  or  obscured  by  meandering  rain-drops 
— out  upon  a  landscape  of  soil  left  naked 
behind  smirched  snow-drifts,  and  of  ragged 
trees  encumbered  by  sodden  underbrush. 
158 


A    TIME    TO    SEW 

Fortunate,  indeed,  were  the  souls  who  whiled 
away  their  passage  through  this  unbridged 
chasm  of  the  year  by  the  performance  of 
all  manner  of  supererogatory  household 
stints  by  way  of  atonement  for  the  slat 
ternliness  of  nature. 

Notable  as  a  model  of  "  f orehandedness  " 
to  the  methods  of  the  March  weather  was 
the  group  gathered  in  the  Glover  sitting- 
room.  Each  of  the  women  was  busy  on 
some  untimely  task,  and  the  very  room,  by 
the  intricacies  of  its  patterned  paper  and 
carpet,  offered  an  effect  of  employment. 
The  daylight  entered  through  the  inter 
stices  of  geranium  plants  mounted  on  small 
sets  of  steps,  and  the  greenish  reflection 
from  their  substantial  leaves  was  met  by 
the  small  red  glares  from  the  mica-paned 
stove.  A  canary,  in  a  glittering  cage  that 
hung  by  a  spiral  from  the  ceiling,  hopped 
and  bounced  from  perch  to  perch,  with  a 
comical  assumption  of  haste  as  he  supervised 
the  women  with  bent  heads  sitting  beneath 
him. 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

The  Glovers  (who  received  the  visits  of 
Putnam  Place  twice  a  year)  were  a  race 
of  small,  compact,  brunette  women,  with 
round,  brown  eyes  that  twinkled  or  glanced 
or  peered  or  beamed  according  to  the  sev 
eral  natures  of  their  owners.  In  the  big 
chair  by  the  window  there  was  old  Mrs.  Glo 
ver,  wearing  the  black  silk  now  prescribed 
by  her  daughters,  as  none  too  good  for 
every-day  use;  seated  at  the  black- walnut 
secretary  there  was  Sarah,  her  eldest  daugh 
ter,  adding,  by  means  of  hoarse  whispers,  a 
column  of  figures  in  a  mottled-covered  ac 
count-book  ;  there  was  her  daughter  Clarina 
setting  prideful  stitches  in  a  frock  for  little 
Clarrie,  a  russet  -  hued  child  playing  blocks 
in  the  seclusion  between  the  hanging,  semi 
circular  leaves  of  the  centre  -  table ;  there 
was  Myrtle  bending  over  the  piled  cambric 
in  her  lap  with  the  alternate  tentativeness 
and  assurance  of  the  girl  in  whom  her 
trousseau  has  roused  for  the  first  time  an 
interest  in  "her  needle."  A  long  whir  from 
the  sewing-machine,  noisy  as  an  engine, 
160 


A    TIME    TO    SEW 

bore  testimony  to  another  presence  that 
might  not  otherwise  have  announced  itself. 
Yet  any  casual  caller  would  have  account 
ed  readily  enough  for  the  addition  to  the 
Glover  group  of  this  lank,  faded,  flat-chest 
ed  woman.  "  So  you're  having  Mary  Allen, 
I  see,"  was  the  formula.  "I  suppose  that 
means  you're  getting  all  sewed  up.  Dear 
me,  I'm  dreadfully  behind  with  my  spring 
sewing  this  year.  Well,  Mary,  I  suppose 
you're  remembering  the  month  you've  prom 
ised  me?" 

This  was  in  the  years  when  the  sewing- 
machine  was  considered  the  equipment  of 
the  professional  seamstress  rather  than  a 
piece  of  household  furniture.  As  yet  there 
was  no  precedent  to  warrant  its  domestica 
tion  in  Putnam.  The  arrival  of  Mary  Allen 
and  of  Mary  Allen's  machine  was  an  event 
to  be  anticipated  in  security,  but  in  patience, 
like  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes,  or  like 
the  annual  visits  of  the  man  who  riveted 
china  ("  It  is  really  marvellous,  my  dear, 
the  way  he  mended  the  tureen  cover"),  or 
it  161 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

who  sharpened  knives  so  carefully  ("And 
I  said  to  Sarah,  'Are  you  sure  this  is  our 
scissors-man?  It  seems  rather  early  in  the 
summer  for  him.'  And  by  a  few  questions 
we  found  out  that  this  was  quite  another 
person"),  or  who  brought  the  nice  needles 
("  I  really  wish  we'd  bought  another  pack 
age  last  fall ;  our  stock  is  running  low,  and 
he  doesn't  come  for  months  yet").  In  this 
spirit  of  resigned  expectancy  the  women 
of  a  family  would  cut  and  "fix"  pile  after 
pile  of  household  sewing  against  the  day 
when  Mary,  her  machine  set  in  the  cart 
of  some  obliging  or  accessible  milkman  or 
grocer,  would  alight  at  the  gate — like  the 
minstrel  of  poesy.  From  the  moment  of 
her  arrival  she  would  take  her  place  before 
her  familiar  instrument,  that  responded  to 
her  touch  with  a  terrific  buzz  and  clangor. 
Mary's  sewing  was  of  the  order  known 
as  "  plain,"  and  as  her  bony  fingers  twitched 
and  snapped  the  white  cotton  breadths  she 
and  her  machine  seemed  united  in  a  common 
absorption  in  their  monotonous  task.  But 
162 


A    TIME    TO    SEW 

during  one  day  at  the  Glovers'  perhaps  the 
excited  screams  of  the  canary — in  emula 
tion  of  the  crescendo  and  diminuendo  with 
which  each  seam  was  accomplished  —  per 
haps  the  scorched  air  that  quivered  above 
the  stove,  perhaps  the  disheartening  drip  of 
murky  water  from  the  eaves  past  the  win 
dow  into  the  pebbly  gutter,  teased  her  mind 
away  from  the  series  of  detached,  philo 
sophical  excursions  with  which  she  was  ac 
customed  to  beguile  her  work. 

Time  and  again  she  picked  up  a  garment, 
its  design  already  prepared,  contributed  her 
intermediate  work,  and  then  laid  it  aside 
that  another  hand  might  add  those  finish 
ing  touches  which  always  claim  the  execu 
tion  of  the  entire  product.  But  it  was  not 
the  insignificant  but  the  fragmentary  part 
which  her  handiwork  played  which  weighed 
upon  her  like  one  of  the  lead-colored  clouds 
of  which  the  sky  was  made.  As  the  day 
wore  on  the  manner  of  her  work  seemed 
the  manner  of  her  life  —  a  series  of  sub 
serviences,  of  relinquishments,  of  disorgan- 
163 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

izing  contributions  in  order  that  the  lives 
of  others  might  be  rounded  out.  From  a 
child  she  had  been  schooled  to  take  pleas 
ure  in  the  commendation  that  "  Mary  is  a 
great  hand  to  fit  in"  or  " to  fill  out."  Her 
girlish  plans  had  always  hung  upon  the 
convenience  of  others;  the  years  of  her 
young  womanhood  had  comprised  a  series 
of  responses  to  emergencies  requiring  a 
temporary  "extra  hand."  And  now — well, 
of  course,  since  she  had  transmuted  her 
heritage  of  the  hill  farm  into  the  sewing- 
machine,  she  had  received  payment  in  re 
turn  for  her  visitations  from  house  to  house, 
and  -she  ought  to  be  thankful  "from  the 
bottom  of  her  heart,"  she  reminded  herself, 
that  she  had  escaped  the  state  of  being  de 
pendent  upon  anybody.  She  ought  to  be 
grateful — and  yet  her  days  lay  behind  her 
in  their  inconsequence  like,  she  thought,  the 
scattered  buttons  from  a  broken  button- 
string  ;  the  web  of  her  life  had  been  snipped 
into  patches  to  piece  out  others'  weaving. 
She  conceived  of  no  manner  of  life  but  one 
164 


A    TIME    TO    SEW 

of  service,  but  with  a  lamentation  that  was 
almost  a  rebellion  she  demanded  the  rea 
sons  why  her  service  need  have  been  thus 
inchoate,  and  that  of  other  women,  her 
companions  by  the  boundary  of  the  same 
room  walls,  had  obtained  a  recognized  in 
dividuality. 

These  had  their  lives  to  themselves.  The 
fortunes  of  the  Glovers  had  mellowed  with 
their  increasing  years,  and  now,  with  com 
fort  for  their  old  age  established,  their  du 
ties  discharged,  their  debt  to  society  an 
nulled,  their  round  accomplished,  old  Mr. 
Glover  could  sit  in  the  dusty,  sweet-smell 
ing  office  of  his  flour-mill  and,  between 
chats  with  cronies,  rearrange  the  shelves  of 
his  mineral  collection ;  while  old  Mrs.  Glover, 
in  the  cretonne-covered  rocking-chair,  with 
her  children  about  her,  with  no  nagging 
conscience,  could  pore  over  her  beloved 
Waverley  novels,  even  in  the  mornings  if 
she  chose. 

Then  Mary  Allen  considered  the  case  of 
Miss  Sarah.  She  had  learned  to  acquiesce 
165 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

in  the  pathetic  romance  of  her  maiden 
hood;  its  pain  had  been  soothed  by  the 
storied  dignity  of  her  lover's  life  and  death, 
that  had  made  remote  Palo  Alto  and 
Buena  Vista  household  words  in  Putnam. 
She  was  the  tacitly  accepted  village  hero 
ine,  and  the  acknowledged  magnate  of  the 
family.  She  dwelt  surrounded  by  a  steady 
glow  of  commendation.  Next  came  Clarina ; 
her  days  were  strung  on  the  twofold  cord 
of  devotion  to  her  husband  and  her  child; 
no  one  would  presume  to  break  that  con 
tinuity.  Myrtle  followed;  throughout  the 
village  community  there  was  a  flutter  of 
deference  about  her  as  an  engaged  girl 
that  protected  her  from  intrusion  upon  her 
flower-strewn  path.  Why,  even  little  Clar- 
rie,  in  retreat  under  the  table,  was  secure 
from  interruption.  The  lives  of  four  of  the 
five  women-folk  within  the  hollowed  cube 
of  the  room  progressed  as  if  guided  by  a 
chart.  "But  my  life  just  hitches  along," 
thought  Mary.  The  depression  of  its  super 
ficial  restlessness,  belying  the  longing  for  a 
166 


A   TIME    TO    SEW 

permanent  abiding-place  in  some  establish 
ed  circle,  tormented  her  by  its  insistence. 
"After  supper,"  she  resolved,  "unless  all 
the  others  have  plans,  I  guess  I'll  go  out  for 
a  walk.  Maybe  I  can  do  an  errand  for  Mrs. 
Glover.  I  sha'n't  mind  the  rain  a  mite. 
It  seems  as  if  I'd  fly,  cooped  up  in  here. 
I  don't  see  what's  got  into  me.  It  isn't 
as  if  I  had  anything,  really,  to  complain 
of." 

The  round,  brown  baby  rolled  out  from 
her  seclusion  and  stood  blandly  contemplat 
ing  the  work  of  her  hands.  She  had  chosen 
the  "  village"  from  the  small  chest  of  ances 
tral  playthings,  and  had  set  out  with  a 
befitting  orderliness  the  solemn  toys — each 
house  laboriously  carved  from  a  block  of 
wood,  with  conscientious  detail  of  fan- 
shaped  window  and  tiled  roof.  She  trotted 
to  old  Mrs.  Glover.  "Grandma,"  she  sug 
gested,  "won't  you  come  play  in  my  vil 
lage?" 

The  old  lady  patted  the  chubby  arm,  but 
did  not  raise  her  eyes  from  the  opened 
167 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

page.  It  was  a  page  of  broken  spaces, 
with  no  solid  descriptive  paragraph,  but 
filled  with  conversation,  and  that  of  the 
most  animated  character.  She  felt  that  the 
hero's  only  safety  lay  in  her  keeping  her 
eyes  firmly  fixed  upon  the  villain.  "I'm 
busy  now,  Clarrie,"  said  she,  her  cap- 
strings  trembling  with  excitement — "there, 
I  knew  that  the  outer  barbacan — run  along, 
dear." 

The  child  turned  an  expectant  face  to 
Miss  Sarah.  "  Auntie,  come  play  with  me," 
she  invited. 

"And  two  is  nine  and  five  is  thirty-four," 
responded  Miss  Sarah,  her  pencil  -  point 
planted,  her  dark  eyes  raised  only  to  roll 
suggestively  in  the  direction  of  the  child's 
mother. 

"Mamma,  you  come,"  she  asked,  cheer 
fully,  trying  to  pull  away  the  little  dress 
which  her  mother  found  so  unaccountably 
interesting. 

"No,  no;  mustn't  pull,"  said  her  moth 
er.     "How  can  I  make  you  a  nice,  new 
168 


A    TIME    TO    SEW 

frock  and  live  in  the  village  under  the 
table?" 

The  child  dismissed  that  proposition  and 
turned  to  the  other  aunt.  "Auntie  Myr 
tle — "  she  began,  when  the  door-bell  rang. 

"It's  a  letter!"  cried  Myrtle,  dropping 
her  work.  "  Oh,  my  dear  child,  did  I  tread 
on  your  foot?  I'm  so  sorry;  but  you 
oughtn't  to  stand  right  in  one's  way."  And 
she  rushed  from  the  room. 

Disheartened  for  the  moment,  the  child 
stood,  the  corners  of  her  mouth  drooping 
with  the  consciousness  of  a  grievance.  Then, 
with  dancing  eyes,  she  sped  across  the  room 
and  flung  herself  upon  Mary  Allen.  "  Won't 
you  come  and  live  with  me  in  my  village?" 
she  begged.  "You  shall  have  a  house  all 
your  own,"  she  added,  seductively. 

The  machine  broke  off  short  in  its  rising 
note.  Its  interrupted  tune  brought  a  sud 
den  hush  into  the  room  that  startled  even 
the  canary  into  quiet.  "  I  wish  to  the  Lord 
I  could,"  said  Mary,  in  the  silence,  her  face 
twitching  unbeautifully.  Then,  laying  her 
169 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

head  upon  the  heaped  muslin  before  her, 
she  sobbed  aloud. 

The  child  drew  back,  alarmed,  and  at  the 
sensation  of  the  little  form  shrinking  from 
her,  Mary  regained  her  control.  "There, 
there,  dear,  you're  a  good  little  girl,"  she 
said,  appalled  that  even  for  an  instant  her 
own  mood  had  disquieted  another's.  "  I 
guess  I  want  a  drink  of  water,"  she  added 
to  the  child's  mother.  She  lifted  the  latch 
of  the  door  between  the  sitting-room  and 
the  kitchen  and  went  out.  The  Glover 
women,  yet  rigid  with  surprise,  heard  the 
squeak  and  grunt  of  the  pump  and  then 
the  splash  of  water  into  the  tin  cup.  A 
minute  later  Mary  reappeared,  quite  calm 
again  save  for  the  embarrassed  realization 
that  she  had  focused  all  eyes  upon  herself. 

"  I  don't  know  when  a  child's  kissed  me," 
she  explained,  seating  herself  and  joining 
the  snapped  thread.  "I  can't  remember 
when.  I  guess  it  upset  me  a  little.  And 
her  asking  me  to  live  with  her — bless  her 
little  heart!  .  .  .  Now  here's  that  skirt, 
170 


A    TIME    TO    SEW 

Miss  Myrtle,  all  ready  for  you  to  put  in  the 
gathers.  I  reckon  I'll  work  a  spell  getting 
those  aprons  ready  for  the  edging,  Miss 
Sarah,  as  I  see  you've  got  the  hems  all 
turned." 


THE    CONSCIENCE 


HE  children's  party  had 
reached  the  stage  where  the 
stupefying  effect  of  the  feast 
and  of  best  clothes  had  begun 
to  merge  into  the  lively  realiza 
tion  that  this  prim  gathering — the  girls  with 
smooth  plaits,  or  with  curls  that  bounced 
up  and  down  in  bed-spring  fashion,  the  boys 
in  tortured  stiffness  of  collars  and  clean 
ness  of  hands  —  was  the  same  band  that 
was  wont  to  enliven  the  way  to  and  from 
school  with  friendly  combat  or  with  festive 
game.  The  mother  and  the  spinster  aunt 
of  the  youthful  hostess,  more  tired,  they 
had  confided  to  each  other  in  the  pantry, 
than  by  a  week's  house-cleaning,  had  dis 
covered  that  "sitting-down  games"  were 
172 


THE    CONSCIENCE 

out  of  the  question.  Activity  was  to  be 
the  order  of  the  day.  Already  two  spick- 
and-span  little  boys  were  wrestling  in  the 
middle  of  the  parlor  carpet,  and  all  the 
other  guests  were  moving  about  as  briskly, 
although  far  from  as  silently,  as  the  pieces 
of  a  kaleidoscope.  Every  idea  of  movement 
in  every  direction  save  in  that  of  departure 
seemed  to  have  occurred  to  them.  Yet 
they  had  come  at  one  and  it  was  now  five 
o'clock.  With  Napoleonic  finesse,  the  aunt 
came  to  the  rescue. 

"Children,"  said  she,  "let  us  have  one 
good  Virginia  reel  before  we  go  home." 
And  sitting  down  at  the  old,  warped  piano, 
she  struck  up  the  worn  air  of  Money-Musk. 

They  were  village  children  who  would 
run  for  blocks  after  a  hand  -  organ  even 
without  a  monkey,  and  to  them  the  feeble 
strain  brought  all  the  excitement  which 
music  can  bring.  But  to  one  child  it 
brought  more  than  excitement — it  brought 
ecstasy.  She  had  been  hiding  in  a  corner, 
gloating  over  one  of  the  square,  thin,  illus- 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

trated  books  that  in  pyramidal  arrange 
ment  were  disposed  on  the  lower  section 
of  the  table.  But  as  the  spinster's  bony 
fingers  beat  up  and  down  on  the  keys  with 
the  action  of  high-stepping  horses,  the  child 
rose,  her  whole  body  responding  to  the 
nimble  phrases. 

She  lacked  a  childish  prettiness,  for  the 
lower  part  of  her  face  was  disproportionately 
delicate  below  a  broad  brow  and  wide-set 
eyes.  These  eyes  dominated  her  presence. 
At  the  mention  of  her  name — Millicent  For 
rester — it  was  the  recollection  of  her  eyes 
that  established  her  personality.  They  were 
large  and  brown,  with  none  of  the  winning 
tricks  of  drooping  lashes  or  shifting  colors. 
They  were  wide  and  unchanging,  with  an 
odd  effect,  as  if  they  served  to  reflect  her 
inner  life  rather  than  to  convey  to  her  mind 
the  vision  of  the  external  world.  Had  they 
not  been  the  eyes  of  a  little  girl,  they  would 
have  been  called  the  eyes  of  the  introspec 
tive  analyst,  of  the  mystic,  of  the  fanatic. 
But  Millicent  was  then  not  ten  years  old. 


THE    CONSCIENCE 

"  Come,  children,  take  your  places,"  urged 
the  aunt,  over  her  shoulder,  as  the  groups 
of  children  continued  to  scramble  aimlessly 
about  the  room.  Not  so  Millicent ;  her  slim 
foot  patted  the  floor  for  each  accent.  There 
was  a  litheness  about  her  lean  little  figure 
that  indicated  that  she  would  be  as  deft  in 
her  movements  as  a  squirrel  speeding  along 
a  branch.  She  yearned  to  take  her  place  at 
the  head  of  the  line,  and  there  she  knew 
that  she  could  be;  for  solemnly,  laborious 
ly,  a  blond-headed  boy  with  an  incredible 
length  of  arm  protruding  from  his  jacket- 
sleeve  was  gathering  courage  to  cross  the 
room  to  her.  Meanwhile  he  fixed  her  un 
waveringly  with  his  eye,  as  if  his  only 
security  were  in  keeping  his  goal  well  in 
sight.  Millicent  liked  the  bashful  boy, 
John  Lattimer  by  name.  He  was  slow,  but 
he  was  not  silly,  as  she  sometimes  crisply 
remarked.  At  the  first  mention  of  the 
dance  her  eyes  had  sought  him  out.  In  the 
course  of  that  search,  however,  they  had 
fallen  upon  a  stout,  fair,  clumsy  girl  known 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

as  Lizzie,  with  a  face  inexpressive  of  any 
thing  save  exasperating  good-nature,  and 
unwillingly  Millicent  recalled  that  an  hour 
before  Lizzie  had  sat  vacuously  smiling  on 
that  self -same  chair,  utterly  neglected  by 
her  more  vivacious  although  less  mannerly 
companions. 

As  if  to  accustom  the  children  to  the 
actualities  of  the  situation,  there  were  more 
little  girls  than  little  boys  present.  Ob 
viously  at  this  party,  as  at  other  New  Eng 
land  functions,  only  the  favored  few  would 
attain  the  dignity  of  a  masculine  partner; 
and  this  attainment,  moreover,  would  be 
only  by  the  despoiling  of  their  sister  women. 
"  But,"  argued  Millicent  with  herself,  "  some 
body  will  dance  with  John,  and  I  have  as 
good  a  right  as  anybody."  And  yet — there 
was  Lizzie.  Millicent  had  always  detested 
that  name,  as  much  as  the  loose  -  jointed 
manner  in  which  its  owner  gathered  herself 
together  or  moved  herself  about.  But — 
Lizzie  was  fond  of  dancing,  and  Lizzie  would 
have  no  partner.  Oh,  that  brisk,  clean-cut 
176 


THE    CONSCIENCE 

music.  How  lightly  Millicent  would  skip  to 
and  fro,  with  the  serious  face  of  John  re 
garding  her  admiringly,  pridefully!  But 
there  was  Lizzie,  her  lower  lip  hanging 
with  disappointment.  Millicent's  own  lips 
were  always  slightly  compressed,  and  often 
an  eager  tension  brought  out  the  cleft  in  her 
chin  where  most  children  have  a  dimple. 

"Hurry,  children,  choose  your  partners," 
said  the  hostess's  mamma. 

Choking  back  a  sob,  Millicent  threaded 
her  way  daintily  to  Lizzie's  side.  "Will 
you  dance  with  me?"  she  asked,  with  cus 
tomary  precision. 

"All  right,"  said  Lizzie,  "I  don't  care  if 
I  do." 

So  they  took  their  places,  but  not  at  the 
top — oh,  dear,  no !  That  position  was  gone 
long  before  Lizzie,  who  stumbled  over  a 
footstool,  could  make  her  way  there.  And 
John  danced  with  the  little  girl  with  the 
longest  spiral  curls. 

As  the  children  were  being  packed  into 
their  cloaks,  the  hostess's  mamma  heard 
"  J77 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

a  muffled  sob  from  the  seclusion  of  the  alley 
between  the  bed  and  the  wall.  Making  her 
way  thither,  she  found  a  lean  little  figure, 
shaking  with  suppressed  weeping,  curled  on 
the  floor.  With  a  tactfulness  born  of  her 
own  experiences,  the  mother  gathered  Milli- 
cent  in  her  arms  and  carried  her  into  an 
empty  room. 

"  My  dear  Milly,  haven't  you  had  a  good 
time?" 

"Yes,  yes." 

"  Has  any  one  been  unkind  to  you?" 

"No,  no." 

"  Was  there  something  you  wanted  that 
wasn't  given  you?" 

"  I  wanted  to  dance — to  dance — " 

"  But  you  were  dancing." 

"With  John  Lattimer." 

"Well,  why  didn't  you?  I'm  sure  he'd 
have  liked  to  dance  with  you." 

"  Because  I  had  to  dance  with  Lizzie." 

"Had  to?  Why,  Milly,  I'm  sure  no  one 
asked  you  to." 

"No,  no  one  asked  me.  It  was  my  old 
178 


THE    CONSCIENCE 

conscience  made  me.  And  I  wanted  so  to 
dance  with  John.  Oh,  dear,  I  hate  my 
conscience!  It  never  lets  me  have  a  good 
time.  I  wish  I  hadn't  any  conscience." 
With  a  fresh  abandonment  to  grief  she 
flung  herself  upon  the  wide  bosom  of  the 
sympathetic  mamma. 

The  mamma  sighed  and  smoothed  the 
short,  dark  hair.  "That's  naughty,"  she 
said,  "to  wish  one  hadn't  a  conscience." 
But  she  kissed  the  child  and  sighed  again 
— perhaps  at  the  futility  of  the  wish. 

The  fact  that  Millicent  Forrester  possessed 
a  conscience  could  not  set  her  off  as  an  ex 
ception  among  other  New  England  girls; 
but  the  fact  that,  from  a  child,  she  had 
regarded  this  conscience  as  a  power  quite 
beside  and  outside  herself  served  to  mark 
her  as  a  variation  of  the  type.  The  con 
sciousness  of  this  duality  had  always  abided 
with  her  as  one  of  the  unquestioned  elements 
of  existence.  The  Bible  stories  of  those 
possessed  with  spirits  struck  her  with  no 
179 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

wonderment.  She  felt  that  she  had  a 
common  possession  with  the  ancient  He 
brews;  and  often,  after  childish  rages,  in 
that  impenetrable  reserve  of  childhood,  she 
meditated  whether  her  governing  spirit  were 
altogether  good  or  altogether  evil. 

As  if  the  heritage  of  a  New  England 
ancestry,  leading  back  as  straight  as  a 
church  aisle  to  the  Pilgrims,  were  not  a 
sufficient  basis  for  a  child's  development, 
tender,  stern  Dr.  Forrester  had  insisted  that 
from  babyhood  his  daughter  be  brought  up 
to  decide  her  line  of  conduct  for  herself.  Had 
Millicent  been  fitly  childish,  this  practice 
would  at  once  have  contributed  a  delightful 
conclusion  to  the  theory;  but  conscience- 
ridden  as  she  was,  the  result  was  a  pre 
cocious  awakening  of  a  sense  of  responsi 
bility.  Her  childhood  was  defrauded  of  all 
that  gleeful  inconsequence  brought  about 
by  accepted  obedience  to  the  gods — as  im 
personated  by  parents, — an  inconsequence 
which  is  in  itself  ample  compensation  for 
the  occasional  tyrannical  moods  to  which 
180 


THE    CONSCIENCE 

all  gods  are  liable.  Throughout  her  child 
hood  the  salutary  experience  of  being 
laughed  over  was  denied  her.  Her  virtues 
were  sparingly,  seriously  praised,  her  pec 
cadilloes  protractedly,  seriously  reproved. 
Naturally  enough,  to  the  parents  the  spirit 
ual  welfare  of  their  only  child  was  a  weighty 
matter;  nor  to  one  of  the  three  could  it 
occur  that  there  was  anything  droll  in  re 
garding  Millicent's  slight,  agile  little  frame 
as  the  repository  of  a  soul  of  so  much  im 
portance. 

She  was  by  choice  a  solitary  child.  She 
found  herself  her  own  most  congenial  play 
mate.  Ostensibly  her  life  was  lonely;  but 
to  herself  there  was  never  a  sense  but  of 
companionship.  Sometimes,  as  at  the  chil 
dren's  party,  the  society  of  her  conscience 
became  irksome  to  her,  and  she  yearned  for 
absolute  solitude;  but  that  isolation  she 
never  attained — her  conscience  was  with  her 
always.  Thus  she  grew  into  maidenhood, 
her  eyes  betokening  the  fulness  of  her  inner 
life,  and  her  manner  of  thought  demon- 
181 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

strating  that  no  trifle  may  be  too  slight  to 
escape  a  consideration  of  its  import,  no  act 
be  too  spontaneous  to  be  traced  to  a  de 
liberate  and  usually  a  selfish  motive.  Yet, 
to  adopt  her  own  pious  phrases,  Millicent 
was  not  by  nature  a  child  of  light,  but  only 
by  daily  contention  with  the  powers  of 
darkness.  All  the  natural  aptitude  for 
mischief  was  hers  to  the  full,  with,  in  ad 
dition,  a  physical  adroitness  that  would 
have  contributed  the  last  delectation  to  the 
accomplishment  of  misdeeds.  With  eyes 
of  envy  she  watched  her  schoolmates  who, 
conscience-free,  frankly  declined  to  swing 
the  younger  children  at  the  Sunday-school 
picnic,  frankly  appropriated  the  best  seats 
at  the  stereopticon  lecture.  But  the  ad 
miration  felt  by  the  bond  for  the  free  was 
ever  present  in  her  mental  attitude;  these, 
bunglers  though  they  were,  were  their  own 
masters — while  she,  deft  with  fingers  and 
brain,  was  a  slave  to  her  conscience. 

Of   course   there   were   times   when   she 
rebelled   against   this   mastery.      Notably, 
182 


THE   CONSCIENCE 

there  was  one  occasion  in  academy  days 
when  she  refused  to  obey  its  behest.  It  was 
at  recess  when,  in  a  momentary  solitude  of 
the  gray -painted  hallway,  John  Lattimer 
kissed  her.  Her  face  flushed  sunnily,  but 
with  maidenly  instinct  she  sought  means 
of  expressing  an  indignation,  and  found 
it  by  flinging  a  dipperful  of  water  from 
the  "drinking  pail"  into  his  face.  "I 
spilled  the  water,  sir,  in  taking  a  drink," 
John  blandly  explained  to  an  inopportune 
teacher.  "Then  you  must  tell  the  truth," 
prompted  the  girl's  conscience;  but  with 
compressed  lips  she  affirmed  John's  words. 
In  the  following  weeks  the  punishment 
for  her  disobedience  was  meted  out  to  her. 
She  would  wake  with  a  start  in  the  early 
winter  mornings,  when  the  melancholy 
dawn  is  breaking,  and  one's  shortcomings 
rise  up,  as  distorted  as  objects  seen  in  a  fog. 
With  the  sight  of  her  breath  in  little  fro 
zen  puffs  before  her,  to  the  sound  of  wag 
on-wheels  creaking  along  the  rutted,  frozen 
road,  Millicent  would  berate  herself  ab- 
183 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

jectly.  True,  as  her  Sunday-school  teacher, 
with  solemnly  wagging  head,  would  have 
defined  it,  hers  was  "a  silent  lie."  But  its 
subtlety  only  added  to  its  enormity.  Even 
its  confession — to  the  mingled  disgust  and 
admiration  of  John — never  quite,  she  felt, 
wiped  out  its  black  stain.  The  ordained 
penance  was  rather  John's  departure  for 
college.  Her  heart  ached  with  the  loss  of 
his  genial,  moderate  temper,  that  had  been 
so  admirable  a  complement  to  her  own 
overwrought  sensibilities;  and  sometimes, 
throwing  aside  the  childish  remorse,  her 
wide,  brown  eyes  would  gain  a  softened 
lustre  in  the  recollection  of  the  drab  hall 
way,  the  tall,  merry-eyed  boy. 

Had  not  Millicent  herself  regarded  her 
childish  tribulations  as  momentous,  they 
could  not  be  recounted  in  connection  with 
her  first  real  sorrow,  the  loss  of  her  mother. 
But  the  girl's  habit  of  cogitation  over  trifles 
had  so  thwarted  her  sense  of  proportion 
that  this,  the  only  event  in  her  eventless 
life,  seemed  to  her  but  one  in  the  series  of 
184 


THE    CONSCIENCE 

events  that  since  her  babyhood  had  crowded 
upon  her.  The  suddenness  of  the  mother's 
death  presented  it  as  predestined  as  it  was 
unforeseen;  even  a  conscience  so  unsane 
as  Millicent's  could  not  find  accusations 
of  remissness  in  care.  It  was  for  the  neg 
lected  ministrations  to  her  mother's  heart 
that  the  daughter  now  so  wildly  reproach 
ed  herself.  In  reviewing  her  days,  Milli- 
cent  translated  every  suppressed  impulse  to 
leave  her  mother's  side  for  younger  com 
panionship  or  for  her  dearly  loved  solitude, 
every  self-indulgent  temptation  of  whose 
existence  she  alone  was  aware,  into  an 
accomplished  deed.  The  conduct  of  her 
life  seemed  full  of  hardness  to  that  loving 
mother  heart.  "  I  can  never  forgive  my 
self,"  moaned  Millicent,  "for  I  can  never 
offer  any  reparation.  I  can  never  do  any 
thing  for  her  now." 

It  was  in  those  days  when  life  looked 

so  dark  to  her  that  John  Lattimer  returned 

to  Putnam  and  the  love  between  the  two 

sprang  up,  as  sweet  and  as  white  as  their 

'85 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

lives.  In  the  strength  of  the  man  the 
woman  found  for  the  first  time  her  fluttering 
heart  at  peace  with  itself ;  in  the  shelter  of 
his  love  the  voice  of  her  tyrant  was  for  the 
first  time  hushed.  In  a  rapture  they  felt 
that  their  love  had  been  ordained  from  the 
beginning  of  the  world. 

It  was  on  the  evening  after  John  had 
slipped  the  engagement  -  ring  upon  her 
smooth,  cool  finger  that  Madam  Hale 
brought  Millicent  a  packet  of  letters.  "  They 
were  written  by  your  sainted  mother  to  me 
during  the  years  that  I  was  in  the  West 
nursing  my  son,"  said  the  majestic  old 
lady.  "I  have  kept  them  for  you.  You 
have  always  been  a  good  girl,  Millicent,  and 
you  will  be  a  good  wife.  These  letters  will 
show  you  what  a  good  girl  you  have  been. 
Your  mother  never  told  you  that,  I  suppose. 
But  I'm  an  old  woman  now,  and  I  have  the 
right." 

Impressed  by  the  mystic  solemnity  of  the 
written  words,  Millicent  received  the  packet. 
Late  that  night  she  sat  in  her  room  turning 
186 


THE    CONSCIENCE 

the  yellowed  pages  covered  with  that  fine, 
pointed  writing  so  tenderly  familiar.  Why, 
she  remembered  when  her  mother,  her 
writing-case  on  her  knee,  had  sat  by  the 
open  window  writing  these  very  letters, 
with  little  Millicent  sewing  by  her  side. 
Here  was  the  mother's  version  of  that  old, 
every-day  life,  her  record  of  the  momentous 
little  events  so  touching  now  in  their  great 
insignificance:  .  „  .  "My  Milly  is  such  a 
good  little  girl.  To-day  I  found  her  stand 
ing  in  a  corner,  because,  she  said,  she  had 
pulled  the  cat's  tail.  ...  I  was  watching 
Milly  as  she  played  in  the  yard  to-day.  I 
think  that  when  she  grows  up  she  will  be  a 
sweet-looking  girl.  I  know  that  she  isn't 
a  pretty  child.  The  lower  part  of  the  face 
is  too  much  like  mine,  but  she  has  her 
father's  fine  brow.  ...  I  am  writing  this 
in  the  nursery,  for  Milly  has  a  little  cold. 
She  was  slightly  feverish  this  morning,  but 
now  she  seems  to  be  sleeping  quietly.  I 
wonder  whether  I  ought  to  love  my  little 
daughter  as  much  as  I  do.  Do  you  think 
187 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

it  quite  right?  Tell  me  if  you  think  I  am 
making  an  idol  of  her.  .  .  .  Millicent  spoke 
a  piece  this  afternoon  at  school.  It  was 
well  received.  I  am  afraid  that  my  heart 
was  very  full  of  pride."  As  Millicent  turn 
ed  the  pages,  revealing  the  atmosphere  of 
love  by  which  her  childhood  had  been 
encompassed,  but  of  which  she  had  been 
as  unaware  as  of  the  actual  air  she  had 
breathed,  she  was  swept  again  by  a  great 
wave  of  desire  for  reparation.  Then  she 
reached  the  last  letter  and  found:  "I  see, 
day  by  day,  how  my  husband,  for  all  his 
strength,  is  growing  to  depend  upon  his 
Millicent.  It  is  strange,  when  she  is  such 
a  child.  But  when  she  is  a  woman  I  hope 
that  she  will  see  this  dependence  as  I  see 
it  now,  and  feel  that  the  love  which  her 
mother  has  given  her  must  be  returned  by 
the  daughter  to  the  father.  It  is  an  early 
spring.  The  crocuses  are  already  out,  and 
yesterday  I  heard  a  pee-wee."  With  all 
the  conviction  of  a  devout  nature,  Millicent 
felt  assured  that  this  was  the  answer  to  her 
1 88 


THE    CONSCIENCE 

cry  for  a  service  of  love  for  the  dead;  then 
the  candle-light  fell  on  her  ring — could  she, 
as  John's  wife,  offer  the  entirety  of  her  de 
votion  to  her  father? 

That  night  she  and  her  conscience  had 
their  last  struggle  together.  In  other  mat 
ters  she  had  conceded  its  authority,  but 
this,  her  supreme  right  and  boon,  she  would 
not  yield.  With  bent  head  she  paced  the 
room.  When  she  looked  up  the  candles 
were  guttering  in  their  sockets  and  the 
bleak  dawn  was  creeping  in  at  the  win 
dow.  She  dropped  wearily  into  a  chair 
by  the  bureau,  and  realized  that  while  in 
the  combat  of  the  night  her  own  strength 
had  been  exhausted,  her  conscience  felt  no 
weakness.  "  I  have  been  beating  against  a 
wall,"  she  said,  with  the  memory  of  a  little 
bird,  fallen  from  its  nest,  that  she  had  found 
breaking  its  wings  against  the  stones  by 
the  brook.  In  the  fatigue  of  her  reflected 
face  she  recognized  its  resemblance  to  each 
of  her  parents ;  and  as  she  looked  she  ac 
knowledged  that  she  would  perforce  walk 
189 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

in  any  path  pointed  out  by  the  monitor 
which  was  her  heritage  as  their  child. 
For  her  there  was  no  choice.  She 
had  surrendered.  She  blew  out  the  can 
dles. 

Perhaps  this  surrender  was  merciful  in 
that  it  saved  her  from  self-doubt ;  for  from 
that  night  she  did  not  interrogate  herself 
whether,  in  the  one  decisive  action  of  her 
life,  she  had  done  well  or  ill.  "  I  cannot  do 
otherwise,"  she  said  to  poor,  desperate  John 
that  morning.  "I  cannot  do  otherwise," 
she  said,  as  she  watched  him,  bowed  with 
this  strange,  outrageous  grief,  go  down  the 
path  and  close  the  gate  behind  him.  "I 
could  not  do  otherwise,"  she  would  repeat 
when  the  old  yearnings  assailed  her.  She 
seemed  as  remote  as  if — could  such  a  popish 
practice  be  conceived  as  finding  its  way  into 
Putnam  Place — she  had  entered  a  convent ; 
as  if,  with  the  folds  of  her  robe  concealing 
her  lithe  figure,  she  were  peering  with  wide, 
hungry  eyes  out  through  the  grating.  Ar 
gument,  persuasion  could  not  reach  her. 
190 


THE    CONSCIENCE 

She  knew  and  John  knew  that  her  involun 
tary  decision  was  irrevocable. 

That  the  exaltation  which  is  accorded  to 
the  righteous  should  now  fall  to  her  lot 
seemed  no  more  than  her  due.  But  in 
stead  of  rendering  praise  that  strength  had 
been  given  her  to  follow  what  had  seemed 
right  in  her  eyes,  she  fell  to  spiritual 
castigations  because  her  renunciation  had 
not  been  gained  by  impulse  but  by  conflict. 
The  selfishness  apparent  in  her  reluctance 
to  accede  to  the  wish  of  the  precious  letter 
struck  her  as  appalling.  A  self-abnegation 
which  had  not  been  spontaneous  seemed  to 
her  no  abnegation  at  all.  She  pushed  from 
her  all  the  fanatic  transport  that  could  have 
succeeded  her  fanatic  sacrifice.  Burdened 
with  self-reproach  as  well  as  with  bereave 
ment,  she  carried  on  her  life,  so  blank  of 
external  events,  so  intricate  with  spiritual 
experiences. 

By  some  freak  of  Fate,  who  seems  some 
times  to  experiment  with  how  small  a  cast 
she  may  play  her  dramas,  the  wife  chosen 
191 


in  after  years  by  John  Lattimer  was  the 
Lizzie  of  school-days.  There  was  so  little 
in  common  between  the  two  women  that 
a  ground  even  for  jealousy  seemed  non 
existent.  But  even  if  she  had  yielded  the 
right  to  love,  Millicent  demanded,  with  a 
passion  which  for  the  moment  made  her 
deaf  to  her  upbraiding  conscience,  the  right 
to  hate.  On  the  day  of  the  wedding,  with 
her  father  leaning  heavily  upon  her  arm, 
she  watched  John  and  his  wife  pass  down 
the  aisle.  At  the  doorway  Lizzie,  clumsy 
as  when  a  child,  stumbled  over  her  gown. 
"I  wish  that  Lizzie  would  die" — Millicent 
defied  the  inner  voice — "  that  she  would  die 
soon!" 

When  within  the  year  Lizzie  died,  Milli 
cent  held  her  frantic  wish  directly  responsi 
ble  for  the  death  of  John's  wife.  With  the 
strange  egoism  that  seems  to  inhere  in  the 
goodness  of  some  women,  the  sacrifice  of 
Lizzie  for  the  punishment  of  Millicent  ap 
peared  reasonably  ordered.  John's  bowed 
head,  with  the  blond  hair  already  silvered, 

102 


THE    CONSCIENCE 

filled  her  with  a  wild  remorse.  To  her  the 
very  essence  of  her  guilt  lay  in  the  fact  that 
to  the  practical  understanding  there  was 
nothing  to  confess;  yet  with  an  elusive, 
impregnable  conviction  she  felt  that  the 
stain  of  blood  -  guiltiness  was  upon  her 
soul. 

As  throughout  her  life  her  blessings  ar 
rived  in  the  form  of  modified  curses,  so  at 
this  time  her  mind  became  mercifully  dis 
tracted  by  the  increasing  weakness  of  her 
father.  The  splendid,  stern  old  man  had 
grown  more  frail  in  health  with  each  year, 
and  now  his  mind  was  becoming  as  that  of 
a  little  child.  Under  the  heavy  brow  his 
eyes  expressed  ineffable  gentleness,  the 
rigid  lips  framed  words  of  long  -  sealed 
tenderness.  Perhaps  this  opportunity  for 
unstinted  devotion  brought  the  closest  ap 
proach  to  continued  happiness  which  Mil- 
licent's  life  had  known.  The  love  deepened 
from  the  filial  to  the  maternal.  It  was  a 
double  grief  that  Millicent  felt  when  at  last, 
as  sweetly  as  he  had  lived  out  his  old  age, 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

Dr.  Forrester  died,  encircled  by  his  daugh 
ter's  love. 

It  would  seem  that  at  last  one  task  had 
been  flawlessly  performed.  Her  father's 
weakness  had  long  been  supplemented  by 
her  strength;  throughout  these  last  years 
his  very  life  had  been  prolonged  by  the 
contribution  of  her  vitality.  His  death  left 
her  a  woman  old  before  her  time,  with  wide, 
brown  eyes  deep  sunk  and  wrinkles  about 
the  sensitive  lips.  "And  yet,  and  yet — " 
she  would  repeat,  as  she  roamed  about  the 
empty  house.  She  could  no  longer  re 
proach  herself  for  lack  of  evidence  of  her 
affection,  but  she  could  blame  herself 
eternally  for  remissness  in  her  care.  Had 
that  wrap  been  sufficiently  warm?  Had 
that  medicine  been  unfailingly  given  at  the 
directed  intervals?  Had  she  not  wearied 
him  by  reading  too  long,  or  depressed  him 
by  cutting  the  reading  short?  No  crim 
inal  could  have  found  such  blackness  in  his 
career  as  she,  pent  within  herself,  descried 
in  the  long,  white  chain  of  her  days.  For 
194 


THE    CONSCIENCE 

in  New  England  there  are  no  nunneries  for 
those  women  whose  heritage  of  conscience 
is  more  than  they  can  bear.  The  slender 
comfort  of  leading  openly  the  ascetic  life, 
the  cold  relief  of  bending  to  stony  rules  and 
of  dwelling  within  decreed  boundaries,  the 
ecstasy  of  the  avowed  vocation  of  piety 
are  denied  to  them.  With  no  ray  of  ap 
probation  to  illumine  their  penitential  walls, 
they  wear  out  their  consecrated  lives,  each 
room  a  cell,  each  meal  a  sacrament,  each 
task  an  expiation. 


THE    CITY    MOUSE 


T  was  in  the  accepted  order  of 
the  daily  ceremonial  that  at 
half -past  four  o'clock  on  sum 
mer  afternoons  a  small  boy 
bearing  a  pile  of  The  Putnam 
Placard  should  make  a  tour  of  the  Place  and 
hurl  a  newspaper  against  each  door.  After 
a  decorous  pause  Putnam  Place  would  then 
wake  from  its  drowse  and  appear  in  smooth 
linen  and  brittle  cambric  on  its  verandas. 
In  accordance  with  this  time-honored  prec 
edent,  on  one  August  day  Mrs.  Hooper  took 
her  seat  behind  the  clematis  -  covered  rail 
of  her  veranda.  She  was  clad  in  a  white 
polonaise  flowing  over  a  black  silk  skirt,  and 
through  black-rimmed  eye-glasses,  set  half 
way  down  her  nose,  critically  surveyed  the 
196 


THE    CITY    MOUSE 

"  Personals"  column  on  The  Placard's  fourth 
and  last  page. 

"I  declare,"  she  commented;  "and  so 
Caroline  Putnam  —  Mrs.  Bumpus,  I  should 
say,  I  suppose — did  come  in  on  last  even 
ing's  train,  after  all.  Then  that  sound  of 
wheels  at  about  eleven  must  have  been 
her  carriage.  I  suppose  that's  one  of  the 
city  customs,  to  arrive  in  the  middle  of  the 
night.  After  living  a  year  in  New  York 
she  doesn't  think  anything  of  clattering  up 
in  a  hack  after  everybody  is  abed  and 
asleep.  But  she  must  be  glad  to  get  back." 
Here  Mrs.  Hooper,  long  trained  in  the 
literary  habits  of  the  Place,  glanced  round 
about  her,  lest  some  decisive  moment  in  the 
activities  of  the  neighborhood  should  sweep 
by,  eluding  her  averted  gaze.  "Why,  I  be 
lieve  that's  Caroline  coming  across  now!" 
she  announced  to  herself,  raising  her  eye 
brows  and  adroitly  catching  the  glasses 
that  had  been  trained  to  hop  off  her 
nose  at  this  signal.  "  What  a  curious 
pattern  her  skirt  is  cut  by!  I've  seen 
197 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

nothing  of  the  sort  in  the  Place.  Most  pe 
culiar." 

Mrs.  Bumpus  strolled  slowly  across  the 
lawn,  stopping  to  poke  the  mould  of  the 
garden-beds  with  her  parasol  and  to  stroke 
the  trunk  of  the  largest  elm.  She  was  a 
pretty,  plump  likeness  of  her  cousin  Miss 
Quincy,  but  with  an  air  of  domesticity 
which  covered  her  as  with  a  garment.  "  How 
Carrie  does  grow  to  look  like  her  mother!" 
said  Mrs.  Hooper. 

Mrs.  Bumpus  lifted  the  latch  of  the 
Hooper  gate,  that  responded,  as  always,  by 
a  squeak  with  a  rising  inflection,  and  the 
two  women,  whose  friendship  had  been 
grafted  in  their  grandparents,  greeted  each 
other  with  a  repressed  warmth  which  testi 
fied  to  its  sincerity.  Then  Mrs.  Bumpus 
took  her  seat  in  her  favorite  rocking-chair, 
that  made  a  cheerful,  clumping  sound  as  it 
swayed  to  and  fro  on  the  warped  boards, 
looked  about  her,  and  sighed  with  content. 
Between  the  cracks  of  the  wooden  walk 
sorrel  was  growing,  its  leaves  vivid  in  the 
198 


THE    CITY    MOUSE 

sunlight.  The  gnarled  apple-tree  in  the 
corner  of  the  yard  had  begun  to  drop  its 
fruit,  and  bees  were  buzzing  lazily  as  they 
crawled  over  apples  half  hidden  in  the 
snarled  grass.  Beyond  lay  the  lush  mead 
ow,  enclosed  by  elm  branches  as  if  by  a 
Gothic  window  -  frame.  Low -lying  along 
the  horizon,  as  if  sagging  with  their  own 
weight,  were  thick,  white  clouds.  "Noth 
ing  has  changed,"  said  Mrs.  Bumpus. 

"No,"  responded  Mrs.  Hooper,  "I  am 
thankful  to  say." 

"  I  noticed  last  evening  that  a  new  house 
was  being  built  on  Putnam  Street,  within 
three  blocks  of  the  Place,"  Mrs.  Bumpus 
went  on.  "  Luella  said  that  the  noise  had 
not  annoyed  her  as  much  as  she  had  an 
ticipated,  however,  and  that  she  wouldn't 
complain,  anyway,  as  long  as  Judge  Lat- 
timer  had  given  up  the  idea  of  building  a 
bay-window  from  his  library." 

"That  was  such  a  strange  idea  for  him 
to  take  up.  But  then,  don't  you  know 
that  the  Lattimers  were  always  a  little 
199 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

fond  of  display  ?  Well,  we  were  all  relieved 
when  he  abandoned  the  bay-window  idea." 

"The  Lattimers  have  always  been  very 
dear  friends  of  ours,"  offered  the  other, 
tentatively,  "but  sometimes  they  don't 
seem  quite  like  other  people." 

The  minister's  wife,  mindful  of  the  dis 
cretion  demanded  of  one  in  her  official  po 
sition,  nodded  inscrutably.  "But  tell  me 
about  your  home  in  the  city,"  she  suggest 
ed,  briskly,  with  the  cheerful,  interested  air 
with  which  she  would  have  said  to  a  re 
turned  missionary,  "Tell  me  about  your 
hut  in  the  wilderness." 

"Home?"  echoed  Mrs.  Bumpus,  and  her 
face  fell.  "When  I  sit  here  and  look  across 
into  my  old  door-yard,  it  doesn't  seem  right 
to  call  those  rooms  in  New  York  —  home. 
Luella  Quincy  is  keeping  up  the  place  as 
well  as  she  knows  how,  of  course,  but  it 
isn't  as  if  she  had  kept  house  all  her  life. 
Do  you  notice  those  streaks  under  the  win 
dow-sill,  third  from  the  right?" 

Mrs.  Hooper  nodded  again  in  silence, 
200 


THE    CITY    MOUSE 

"You  always  did  keep  that  house  as  if  it 
were  the  apple  of  your  eye,  Carrie,"  she  said. 

"  So  it  was — the  place  where  my  ancestors 
have  lived  and  died,  ever  since  Putnam  was 
a  trading-post  with  the  Indians.  But  in 
New  York  there  isn't  any  'place.'  The 
front  steps  lead  straight  down  to  the  side 
walk,  with  the  back  door  right  beneath 
them;  and  the  kitchen  is  down  cellar,  and 
the  front  door  leads  out  of  what  should 
be  the  best  bedroom.  The  only  '  grounds ' 
are  the  back  yard,  no  bigger  than  that 
flower-bed,  only  with  a  high  fence  all  round. 
It  looks  just  like  your  chicken -yard." 

Mrs.  Hooper  shook  her  head  in  silent  dis 
approval.  "Dear  me!  dear  me!"  she  ejac 
ulated.  "Why,  where  do  you  sit  in  mild 
weather  to  read  the  paper  or  to  do  your 
sewing?" 

"There  isn't  any  porch,  unless  you'd 
count  the  stone  steps  that  lead  up  to  the 
front  door,  and  they're  so  close  to  the  side 
walk  that  passers-by  would  be  right  below 
one's  feet.  It's  as  public  as — as  public  as — 
201 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

why,  I  can't  think  of  anything  in  all  Putnam 
as  public  as  the  front  steps  of  my  house. 
Unless" — she  lowered  her  voice — "do  you 
recall,  in  front  of  that  little  hotel  far  down 
on  Putnam  Street,  the  row  of  chairs  set 
out  under  the  trees,  right  on  the  sidewalk? 
Maybe  you've  noticed  them  in  passing  by 
on  the  other  side  of  the  street.  Yes?  Well, 
I  shouldn't  feel  a  bit  more  respectable  than 
the  men  tilted  back  on  those  chairs  if  I 
should  sit  out-doors  in  the  city." 

Mrs.  Hooper  made  a  sound  with  her  tongue 
against  her  upper  teeth.  If  correctly  done, 
this  conveys  remonstrance  added  to  won 
derment,  with  a  subtle  suggestion  of  incre 
dulity.  Mrs.  Hooper  did  it  correctly. 

"And  then,"  insisted  Mrs.  Bumpus,  "of 
course  the  people  living  near  could  hear 
every  word  you'd  say." 

"Not  even  with  the  nicest  neighbors," 
returned  the  other,  "whom  you've  always 
known  all  about,  could  I  tolerate  that." 

"Neighbors?"  repeated  Mrs.  Bumpus, 
rocking  violently  as  an  aid  to  the  expres- 
202 


THE   CITY   MOUSE 

sion  of  her  sentiments.  "  In  the  city  there 
aren't  any  neighbors.  Nobody  knows  or 
cares  who's  living  next  door.  Now,  my  bed 
room  wall,  over  by  the  bureau,  is  kept  warm 
by  the  chimney  of  the  house  on  the  right. 
But  I  don't  know  whom  the  fire  is  built 
for.  And  often,  when  little  Homer  has  been 
asleep  and  Homer  away  at  his  business,  I've 
had  real  enjoyment  from  the  piano-playing 
in  the  house  on  the  left;  but  who  plays,  I 
don't  know.  Sometimes  the  doctor's  buggy 
has  come  to  the  house  opposite  every  day 
for  months,  but  I  didn't  know  who  the 
patient  was,  or  whether  he  or  she  was  better 
or  worse.  That  used  to  make  me  the  most 
homesick  of  anything,  for  I  would  think  of 
the  broth  and  jelly  and  gruel  always  sent 
about  in  the  Place.  Yes,  and  how  the 
neighbors  would  come  right  in  and  help,  as 
if  they  were  members  of  the  family ;  and  the 
doctor  expected,  of  course,  to  stop  and  tell 
everybody  what  sort  of  night  the  patient  had 
had.  But,  would  you  believe  it?  I've  got 
so  now  that  I  don't  know  and  I  don't  care." 
203 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

"My  dear!" 

"No,  I  don't  care,"  repeated  Mrs.  Bum- 
pus,  ruthlessly.  From  the  vantage-point 
of  her  childhood's  home  the  fashion  of  her 
city  life  began  to  shape  itself  objectively, 
and  in  the  enthusiasm  of  the  raconteur  she 
threw  moderation  to  the  winds.  "After 
a  while  you  take  all  this  as  a  matter  of 
course.  It  is  considered  rather  countrified 
to  take  an  interest  whether  your  next-door 
neighbors  are  alive  or  dead."  She  paused, 
to  try  the  effect  of  this  heresy  on  her 
audience.  Finding  it  both  duly  shocked 
and  gratifyingly  interested,  she  went  on,  re 
flectively  :  "  There's  another  thing.  Here,  if 
one  of  us  buys  a  new  gown,  or  goes  out  to 
tea,  or  leaves  town  for  a  few  days  to  visit 
her  relations,  about  three  -  quarters  of  her 
pleasure  is  in  knowing  that  her  neighbors 
know  what  she  wears  or  where  she's  going. 
But  in  the  city  nobody  cares.  Many  an 
evening  I  might  have  gone  out  with  Homer, 
but  what  was  the  use?  Nobody  would 
know  that  we  had  gone ;  and  nobody  would 
204 


THE    CITY    MOUSE 

care  to  know,  when  we  came  home,  whether 
we  had  had  a  good  time." 

"Dear,  dear!" 

"  But  that  isn't  anything  at  all,"  pursued 
Mrs.  Bumpus,  revelling  in  her  impression 
able  audience.  "You've  no  idea  how  easy 
it  is  in  the  city  to  be  extravagant.  In 
stead  of  keeping  the  pennies  in  a  little  box 
on  the  mantel,  to  pay  the  children  who 
come  to  sell  berries,  the  pennies  are  simply 
a  nuisance  to  be  got  rid  of." 

"No  savings-bank?" 

"  You  mean  those  plaster  eggs  with  a  slit 
in  the  little  end,  for  missions?  No.  Homer 
makes  out  a  check  and  that  ends  it.  And 
it's  not  only  pennies  —  nickels,  too.  They 
aren't  money;  they're  car-fare." 

The  two  mused  for  a  space  on  metro 
politan  depravity.  Then  Mrs.  Hooper,  with 
professional  charitableness,  offered:  "But 
I've  heard  that  the  city  sights  are  con 
sidered  very  interesting." 

"Yes,"  admitted  Mrs.  Bumpus,  "I  sup 
pose  that  some  people  might  call  some 
205 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

things  interesting — the  people  and  the  plays 
and  the  parks,  maybe.  But  speaking  about 
parks,  I  must  tell  you  about  one  drive  that 
I  had  last  autumn.  I  was  taking  little 
Homer  for  his  airing — yes,  thank  you,  he's 
the  picture  of  health.  But  your  asking  me 
about  sights  reminded  me  of  this  day.  The 
trees  were  all  yellow,  just  as  they  turn  in  the 
Place ;  and  by  the  side  of  an  out-of-the-way 
road  was  a  bonfire  of  fallen  leaves,  with 
little  crackling  flames  and  sweet-smelling 
blue  smoke  that  followed  the  carriage.  The 
smell  of  the  smoke  was  just  the  same  as 
in  the  Place.  I  closed  my  eyes,  so  that  I 
shouldn't  see  the  park.  And  then  I  could 
see,  down  at  the  end  of  the  lane,  behind  my 
old  home,  a  bonfire  of  leaves  from  the  old 
elm,  with  the  smoke  drifting  through  the 
syringa  bushes.  I  heard  the  hens  clacking, 
and  across  in  the  meadow  stood  the  Lat- 
timer  cow,  chewing  her  cud.  Then  I  pre 
tended  to  turn  round,  and  there  was  my 
back  porch,  with  the  shelf  of  flower-pots, 
and  the  milk-can,  and  the  stack  of  kindling, 
206 


THE   CITY    MOUSE 

and  the  pump.  Then  I  pretended  to  look 
across  the  street,  and  there  were  you  and 
Millicent  Forrester,  in  your  black  silks, 
coming  across  the  lawns  to  have  a  little 
chat  before  tea-time.  The  sun  was  low, 
just  as  it  is  now,  and  you  held  your  hands 
before  your  eyes  to  keep  out  the  slanting 
light.  ...  Of  course,  I  know  it's  foolish  of 
me,  but  that,  with  my  eyes  shut,  is  the  best 
sight  I've  seen  in  the  city." 

Mrs.  Bumpus  wiped  her  eyes,  while  Mrs. 
Hooper  patted  her  visitor's  knee  sym 
pathetically.  "Yes,"  said  the  minister's 
wife,  "living  in  the  city  must  be  a  great 
cross — you  are  so  far  away  from  everything 
— so  far  away." 


THE    GATE 


HE  local  landmark  of  the 
western  boundary  -  line  be 
tween  Putnam  Place  and 
the  "  country "  was  the 
Thacher  house.  Its  aspect 
was  a  concession  to  both  the  rural  and 
the  urban  stations  whereunto  it  had  been 
called.  As  if  it  were  a  farm-house,  it  stood 
between  two  pieces  of  meadow-land,  out 
lined  by  low  stone -walls,  scarcely  more 
effectual  than  the  rows  of  pebbles  with 
which  children  indicate  insurmountable 
barriers;  but  as  if  it  were  in  the  midst  of 
alarms,  the  strip  of  shorn  door-yard  was 
hedged  in  by  a  series  of  white  wooden  posts 
and  rails,  any  doubt  of  whose  efficiency  was 
clinched  by  the  ponderous  ceremony  of  the 
208 


THE    GATE 

gateway.  The  gate  was  swung  between 
two  mighty  posts,  ball  surmounted,  stand 
ing  like  two  heavily  built,  blank -faced 
sentinels;  it  was  elaborately  cross -barred 
and  clamped,  and  secured  across  the  top 
by  a  broad,  flat  ledge  whose  whitewash, 
fresh  every  spring,  was  worn  thin  by  June's 
pelting  rains.  Facing  this  gate  was  the 
house's  gable  end,  characterized  by  a  hardy 
wistaria  that,  started  from  a  single  root, 
stretched  out  branches,  trained  like  the 
sticks  of  a  fan,  to  the  corners  of  the  hipped 
roof.  The  doorway,  reached  by  a  path  of 
flags  set  like  stepping-stones  in  the  red- 
streaked  crab  -  grass  that  sprawled  over 
their  rounded  corners,  faced  the  eastern 
meadow.  In  the  afternoons  the  shadow 
of  the  house  marked  out  a  block  of  shade 
that  Mr.  Thacher  called  his  veranda,  and 
in  the  concluding  hours  of  each  day's  sun 
shine  he  was  accustomed  to  carry  thither 
his  spindle-backed  chair  and  his  yesterday's 
paper.  He  was  a  tall,  high-shouldered  man, 
with  finely  jutting  brow  and  gray  hair  that, 
u  209 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

thin  across  the  crown,  could  yet  be  brushed 
into  thick  tabs  before  his  ears.  The  mind 
of  Putnam  had  long  been  adjusted  to  his  sole 
occupation  of  the  Thacher  homestead.  The 
detachment  and  repose  of  the  house,  set  off 
by  its  fields  of  wind-rippled  grass,  seemed 
to  find  their  counterpart  in  the  abstracted 
impersonal  gaze  of  his  short-sighted,  kindly 
eyes. 

"Good-afternoon,  Mr.  Thacher,"  called  a 
woman's  voice. 

"Good-afternoon,"  he  repeated,  cordially, 
peering  with  unseeing  eyes  at  the  head  and 
shoulders  above  the  gate  and  below  a  black 
parasol.  "Come  right  in  and  sit  down," 
he  added,  as  he  advanced.  "Why,  Miss 
Louisa,  it's  you!  Well,  this  is  a  treat." 

"  Now  I  didn't  mean  you  should  get  up," 
said  she.  "I  was  just  passing  by  and 
couldn't  go  back  to  Putnam  Street  without 
speaking." 

"I  should  hope  not.  Now  don't  stand 
out  here  in  the  sun.  Come  in  and  rest  a 
spell." 

210 


THE    GATE 

"I'm  out  on  an  errand,"  Miss  Louisa 
replied,  adjusting  her  parasol  so  that  its 
circle  of  shade  included  the  two  heads  bent 
over  the  gate. 

"You're  always  busy,  Miss  Louisa." 

"When  we  were  children  we  were  taught 
that  industry  isn't  a  fault.  But  if  it  was, 
you  couldn't  be  blamed  for  it,  I  should 
say,  from  the  looks  of  things." 

"  I  haven't  much  on  hand  this  afternoon." 

"  As  I  came  along,  I  saw  Mr.  Hooper  train 
ing  his  pea- vines.  How  are  yours  doing?" 

"  I  haven't  any." 

"Why,  Mr.  Thacher!     Now,  really—" 

"  But  I  don't  like  peas." 

"  But  you  might  sell—  As  the  fatuity 
of  her  advice  came  upon  her,  she  contented 
herself  with  shaking  her  head  disparagingly. 
Mr.  Thacher  waited  without  expostulation. 
For  a  few  minutes  there  was  silence. 

"You  know  that  dress  that  I've  worn  to 
church  for  the  last  three  years?"  she  asked, 
irrelevantly. 

His  cogitation  was  so  deep  that  remem- 

211 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

brance  could  have  been  no  greater  compli 
ment.  "It's  brown — tobacco-brown,  they 
call  it,"  she  went  on,  nervously  twirling  her 
parasol.  "  My  sister  Amabel  gave  it  me  as 
a  Christmas  present.  The  color  was  being 
worn  out  West,  where  she  lived.  Of  course, 
when  I  thanked  her  I  told  her  I  liked  it — 
I  couldn't  do  anything  else,  could  I?  Of 
course  not, ' '  she  responded  to  herself.  ' '  But, 
really,  Mr.  Thacher,  I  hated  it  all  the  time. 
I  always  have  hated  that  color.  I  don't 
think  it's — nice.  Last  week  I  was  caught 
out  in  the  rain  with  it,  and  it  all  cockled 
up  so  that  nothing  could  be  done.  I  told 
my  sister  how  sorry  I  was — I  had  to,  hadn't 
I,  Mr.  Thacher?  Why,  of  course.  To-day 
came  an  express  bundle;  my  sister  said  it 
was  a  present  for  me.  I  opened  it,  and 
there !  She'd  sent  and  got  another  piece  of 
dress  goods  just  like  the  first."  The  parasol 
shook,  so  that  the  light  and  shade  vibrated 
across  the  bare,  gray  head  above  her.  "I 
was  so  disappointed,  you  can't  think.  I 
knew  just  what  I  was  going  to  buy — black, 

212 


THE   GATE 

with  a  little  white  sprig."  She  fumbled  for 
her  handkerchief  in  the  netted  bag  on  her 
wrist.  Again  Mr.  Thacher  waited,  his  head 
benignly  bent,  while  the  breeze  filled  out 
his  seersucker  coat  like  a  sail,  and  dragged 
Miss  Louisa's  skirt  in  among  the  bars  of  the 
gate. 

"Well,"  said  she,  after  a  few  minutes  of 
healing  silence,  "I  suppose  it's  foolish  in 
me  to  care — an  old  woman  like  me — what 
I  wear.  And  Amabel  was  as  good  as  gold 
to  get  it  for  me — it  means  that  she  must 
make  out  with  her  old  cashmere.  At  any 
rate,  she'll  never  know  but  she's  granted  me 
my  heart's  desire.  Good-bye,  Mr.  Thacher. 
I  oughtn't  to  have  kept  you  standing  here 
so  long,  only  you  didn't  strike  me  as  hav 
ing  anything  especial  on  hand.  I  must  be 
going  on.  7've  got  my  hands  more  than 
full  as  it  is,  and  now  there's  that  dress  to  be 
made  up.  .  .  .  No,  of  course  it  isn't  as  if 
anything  could  be  done  about  it ;  but  I  just 
felt  as  if  I  had  to  tell  somebody,  and  as  I 
was  passing  by —  Somehow  it  doesn't  seem 
213 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

quite  as  unbearable  as  it  did.  Well,  good 
bye,  Mr.  Thacher." 

She  braced  her  parasol  against  her  shoul 
der  at  a  military  angle,  preparatory  for 
marching,  and  wheeled  about  on  her  home 
ward  route.  "  Next  time  you  come  my  way 
you  must  plan  to  stop,"  said  he.  "Good 
bye,  Miss  Louisa." 

With  hands  clasped  behind  his  back  and 
a  suggestion  of  monasticism  in  his  meas 
ured  stride,  he  paced  back  to  the  doorway. 
"Well,  well!"  he  commented. 

He  had  sat  down  again  to  the  newspaper, 
and  had  succeeded  in  folding  one  column 
secure  from  the  mischievous  wind  that 
snapped  it  from  his  patient  hands,  when 
again  a  voice,  this  time  a  man's,  sounded 
from  the  gate.  "How  are  you,  Thacher?" 
it  called. 

He  slipped  the  paper  under  a  leg  of  the 
chair  and  turned  his  deliberate  steps  towards 
the  gate.  "  It's  good  to  see  you,"  he  began. 
"  Come  right—  Well,  if  it  isn't  Lex  Gulick. 
You're  back  from  the  city  early  this  sea- 
214 


THE    GATE 

son.  Step  in  out  of  the  sun  and  rest  a 
bit." 

"  Now,  Bran  Thacher,"  replied  Mr.  Gulick, 
mopping  his  rosy  face  and  using  his  shining 
straw  hat  as  a  fan,  "you  may  just  as  well 
bear  in  mind  that  when  I  was  only  learning 
my  a-b  abs,  you  were  speechifying  about 
the  Turk  in  his  guarded  tent.  No  doubt 
you  would  feel  like  sitting  down  after 
you'd  walked  a  couple  of  miles,  but  I'm 
just  working  myself  up  for  a  good  long 
swing  over  the  hills.  You  ought  to  exer 
cise  more,  Thacher;  you  have  no  idea  how 
young  and  strong  it  would  make  you  feel." 

"  No  doubt— no  doubt." 

"This  afternoon  I'm  out  on  one  of  my 
tramps  that  brought  me  past  here,  and  I 
thought  I'd  stop  and  see  if  I  could  do  any 
thing  for  you." 

"Thank  you,  Lex — thank  you.  But  I 
don't  need  anything  to-day.  How  is  your 
family?  Mrs.  Gulick  is  well,  I  hope,  and 
Alice?" 

"  Nicely,  thank  you — nicely.    Alice  is  not 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

quite  as  strong  as  I  could  wish,  but  long 
before  the  end  of  the  summer  she'll  be  more 
like  herself,  I've  no  doubt.  The  first  few 
weeks  in  Putnam  always  seem  to  pull  her 
down."  After  pausing  vainly  for  the 
"Why?"  that  would  offer  an  excuse  for 
repressing  further  confidences,  he  went  on: 
"That  may  seem  odd  to  you,  Bran.  I 
couldn't  understand  it  myself  for  several 
years;  but  now  I  think  I've  got  to  the 
bottom  of  it."  As  he  spoke  he  turned  away 
his  eyes,  as  if  the  cross-barred  gate  were  a 
screen  intervened  between  him  and  his  old 
comrade. 

"  Perhaps  you  remember  that  when  Alice 
was  a  mere  child — a  mere  child — there  was 
a  strapping  young  village  bumpkin  just 
out  of  the  academy,  going  to  study  law  in 
his  father's  office — a  mere  boy,  you  see. 
There  was  nothing  against  the  lad,  you 
understand;  it  didn't  matter  to  me  if  he 
was  as  poor  as  Job's  turkey  or  as  rich  as 
Croesus  —  it  was  the  absurdity  of  those 
children  fancying  themselves  in  love.  You 
216 


THE    GATE 

may  be  sure  I  settled  that  matter  in  pretty 
quick  time.  There  was  no  more  of  that 
childish  business.  That  was  the  summer 
Alice  went  abroad,  and  the  week  until  she 
did  go  she  stayed  in  her  room — yes,  sir. 
The  next  summer  it  was  just  as  I'd  told 
her — he'd  gone  away,  and  since  then  we've 
lost  sight  of  him  entirely.  I  thought  I  could 
put  an  end  to  that  nonsense,  and  I  did. 

"  But  Alice — well,  Alice  has  always  been 
delicate.  Her  tastes  are  quiet.  Not  but 
that  she's  received  a  great  deal  of  atten 
tion,  but  she  isn't  at  all  the  belle  her  moth 
er  was  at  her  age.  And  she's  so  exception 
ally  quiet  when  we  come  back  here  in  June 
that  sometimes  I  wonder  whether  it  can  be 
that  she's  remembering  that  boy -and -girl 
affair.  At  the  time  it  never  occurred  to  me 
but  I  was  doing  the  only  thing;  but  nowa 
days  I  get  to  puzzling  why  I  took  such  a  tone 
— what  there  was  to  make  such  a  fuss 
about.  In  those  days  I  never  doubted  but 
I  was  pursuing  the  sensible  course,  and  that 
Alice  was  a  foolish,  disobedient,  wilful  girl. 
217 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

But  after  all,  Bran,  what  harm  was  there 
in  it,  anyway?  When  I  lie  awake  I  get 
to  worrying  over  Alice's  not  marrying — 
refusing,  of  course,  you  understand — and 
wondering  whether  I  can  possibly  have  in 
terfered  with  her  happiness.  ...  It  isn't 
as  if  it  were  a  thing  one  could  ask  advice 
about.  It  can't  be  helped  now.  It's  done, 
once  for  all."  With  his  cane  he  switched 
off  the  heads  of  the  dandelions,  gone  to 
seed,  that  reached  up  against  the  gate-post. 
"Well,  Bran,  it  may  turn  out  for  the  best, 
after  all.  At  all  events,  that  was  what 
I  believed  at  the  time.  I  can  have  that 
comfort."  Then,  more  briskly:  "That's  the 
sort  of  thing  you  don't  have  to  turn  over 
in  your  mind  o'  nights.  I  should  say  there 
was  nothing  to  keep  one  awake  night,  or 
day  either,  in  this  place.  Pity  sakes,  Bran, 
you  look  like  an  old  man  when  you  lean  on 
the  gate  that  way!  You  don't  know  how 
round-shouldered  you're  growing.  You'd 
better  join  me  in  a  constitutional." 

"Another     time,"     said     Mr.    Thacher, 
218 


THE    GATE 

shaking  hands  over  the  gate.  "Good-bye. 
Give  the  ladies  my  remembrances."  He 
watched  the  alert,  pugnacious  figure  stride 
along  towards  the  village,  then  turned  his 
vague  eyes  to  the  progress  of  the  breeze, 
repeated  time  and  again  across  the  bend 
ing  meadow-grass.  "Tut,  tut!"  he  whis 
pered. 

He  had  gathered  up  the  paper,  and  was 
bent  close  over  its  sparse  columns  when  a 
girl's  voice  came  from  the  gate.  "Is  Mr. 
Thacher  at  home?"  it  called. 

He  started  up,  recklessly  cramming  the 
paper  into  his  pocket.  He  could  perceive 
only  a  dazzle  of  hair,  literally  the  red  that  it 
was  called  in  the  village,  and  the  blur  of  a 
white  dress;  but  the  blended  mischief  and 
affection  in  the  crisp  tones  were  sufficient 
for  recognition.  "It's  Frederika,"  he  ex 
claimed — "  home  from  school  again !  Come 
right  in  and  sit  down  and  tell  me  all  about 
it.  Not  but  what  I  know  something  al 
ready—  With  preposterous  slyness  he 
tapped  his  bulging  coat  -  pocket.  "This 
219 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

very  afternoon  haven't  I  been  reading  my 
little  Rika's  name  in  The  Placard — " 

"  Mr.  Thacher,  you  haven't  been  spending 
the  afternoon  with  that  insipid  Placard? 
What  can  you  find  in  it  of  the  faintest  in 
terest?  Miserable,  gossipy  little  sheet.  Why 
not  take  a  good  daily  from  the  city — yes,  or 
even  a  weekly — and  read  news  of  real  im 
portance?  It  would  bring  you  in  touch 
with  the  times.  Here  you  are  so  isolated. 
No,  thank  you.  See,  this  elm  shadow  comes 
across  here  now,  and  it's  growing  longer. 
Besides,  I  can't  stop.  I'm  running  an  er 
rand  for  mother."  The  girl  regarded  him 
with  a  fondness  that  belied  the  asperity 
of  her  words  and  lent  a  charm  to  her  pale, 
keen  eyes. 

He  beamed  upon  her,  patting  her  slim 
white  hand  with  his  gaunt  brown  one.  At 
the  pride  in  its  touch  her  lips  trembled,  and, 
bowing  her  head  over  the  ledge  of  the  gate, 
she  burst  into  tears. 

"Why,  Rika— why,  Rika,"  he  soothed 
her;  "there,  there!  Now  let  me  bring  you 
220 


THE   GATE 

your  old  cup  with  fresh  well-water.  You 
always  said  that  was  the  sweetest  water 
in  Putnam." 

She  held  to  his  seersucker  sleeve.  "  Don't 
go,"  she  begged.  He  waited,  while  with 
downcast  eyes  and  wet  cheeks  she  watched 
her  forefinger  tracing  the  grain  of  the  wood 
beneath  the  thin  coat  of  paint.  "  You  don't 
ask  me  what  the  trouble  is,  Mr.  Thacher," 
she  began,  "but  I'm  going  to  tell  you  all 
the  same.  It  was  your  speaking  about  my 
'honors,'  and  being  so  gratified,  that  made 
me  behave  so  just  now;  for — oh,  dear! — 
that's  just  what  I've  met  at  home,  and  what 
is  to  be  done  about  it?  Father  and  mother 
haven't  thought  yet,  they're  so  delighted. 
Yes,  I  know  it's  a  mole-hill,  but,  such  as  it 
is,  it's  my  mountain,  for  it  means  that  I've 
arrived  at  the  top  of  my  ambitions.  But 
father  and  mother  don't  see  yet  where  the 
road  has  taken  me.  I  didn't  see,  either,  all 
the  while  I  was  climbing  it;  but  can't  you 
see,  Mr.  Thacher?  When  they  came  to 
Putnam,  poor  as  poverty,  they  began  to 

221 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

pinch  and  save  so  that  I  might  go  to  the 
grammar-school,  and  maybe  be  a  clerk  in 
stead  of  a  mill-hand;  and  then  so  that  I 
could  go  to  the  academy,  and  maybe  be  a 
book-keeper  instead  of  a  clerk;  and  then, 
when  father  had  taken  the  cross-roads 
grocery,  they'd  formed  the  habit  of  making 
sacrifices  on  my  account,  I  suppose,  so  they 
sent  me  to  college,  so  that  maybe  I  could 
be  a  school-teacher  instead  of  a  book 
keeper.  Then  came  the  fellowship,  and — 
oh,  certainly ;  they'd  spare  me  another  year 
from  home,  and  they'd  make  out  my  ex 
penses,  so  that  I  could  'complete  my  studies.' 
And  now  this  proposition  to  be  one  of  the 
faculty — just  the  point  where  all  these  years 
have  been  leading,  of  course.  But  can't  you 
think  what  it  means  to  us  three  —  father 
and  mother  and  me?"  she  demanded,  im 
patiently.  "  It  means  that,  now  my  parents 
have  succeeded  in  giving  me  a  start  and  that 
I'm  nicely  on  my  way,  I'm  to  cut  loose  from 
them.  You  needn't  deny  it,  and  talk  about 
letters  and  vacations  and  that  sort  of 

222 


THE    GATE 

thing,  '*  she  interrupted  herself,  vehemently. 
"It  would  mean  nothing  less  than  separa 
tion.  I'd  be  living  my  own  life,  that  they'd 
take  no  pleasure  in,  even  if  they  could  un 
derstand  its  interests  ;  and  they'd  be  grow 
ing  old  together  in  the  sitting-room  behind 
the  store.  There,  that's  the  goal  we've 
been  making  for,  and  never  saw  till  we 
reached  it. 

"Yes,  I  know  what  people  will  say — that 
they  might  go  with  me.  But  you  wouldn't 
say  that,  Mr.  Thacher.  You'd  know  how  for 
lorn  my  mother  would  feel  among  strangers 
with  different  ways  of  dress  and  speech  and 
thought ;  how  miserable  my  father  would  be 
without  his  work  and  in  his  Sunday  coat 
all  the  week  long.  No,  father  shall  sit  in 
the  doorway  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  and  mother 
shall  tie  on  her  white  apron  for  supper. 
Their  daughter's  made  enough  mistakes 
without  bewildering  them  by  her  and  her 
friends'  'advantages.' 

"You  see  the  only  other  way — it's  plain 
enough — that  I  should  come  home.  I'd  do 
223 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

it — you  know  I  would — if  that  would  help 
out.  But  would  that  give  much  permanent 
satisfaction?  Their  own  ambitions  as  well 
as  mine  have  gone  into  this  educational 
progress.  Think  of  the  waste  of  those  years 
of  effort.  Oh,  dear! 

"So  what's  left?  Oh,  I  don't  expect  an 
answer.  There's  no  solution.  No  matter 
which  way  I  turn,  I'll  regret  it.  But  I  just 
had  to  talk  it  out  to  some  one,  and  ever 
since  I  was  a  baby  you've  heard  me  out  in 
my  tantrums.  Poor  man,  I'm  glad  other 
people  don't  come  and  toss  their  burdens 
over  the  fence,  or  your  yard  would  be 
littered  with  them.  Good-bye,  Mr.  Thach- 
er.  I'm  going  off  to  settle  this  by  myself. 
For  some  reason  it  doesn't  seem  quite  as 
hopeless  as  it  did.  ...  I  mean  to  bring 
you  a  few  books  that  I  want  you  to  read 
this  summer  instead  of  that  old  Placard. 
Good-bye." 

"Good-bye,  Rika,"  responded  Mr.  Thach- 
er.  "  Bring  them  soon." 

"  Dear,  dear ! "  he  murmured,  as  he  watch- 
224 


THE    GATE 

ed  the  girl  turn  up  the  street  to  the  cross 
roads — "dear,  dear!" 

The  toot  of  a  factory  whistle  interrupted 
his  reverie,  and  he  absently  verified  the  hour 
by  his  big  silver  watch.  "Six  o'clock,"  he 
remarked.  "Where's  the  afternoon  gone?" 
Slowly  he  entered  the  doorway  and  set  out 
his  celibate  board  with  single  plate  and  cup. 
"  It  isn't  as  if  I'd  been  doing  anything,"  he 
observed,  "but  somehow  I  do  feel  sort  of 
tired." 
is 


THE    FORCE 


N  any  feminine  community  it 
is  obvious  that  it  makes  for 
the  comfort  and  assurance  of 
all  concerned  if  one  woman 
assumes  the  masculine  role; 
not  that  by  temperament  she  should  be 
masculine,  or  employ  methods  that  are 
masculine,  but  that  she  should  rise  to  the 
occasion  and  play  that  she  is  masculine.  In 
New  England  towns  the  women  assigned 
these  roles  present  them  in  varying  fashion. 
Some  find  the  part  so  foreign  to  their  natures 
that,  agitated  by  its  requirements,  they 
excitedly  affect  traits  belying  their  own  as 
well  as  their  assumed  characters ;  others  are 
unconsciously  endowed  with  a  skill  that  in 
terprets  the  part  with  a  charm  and  a  trust- 
226 


THE    FORCE 

fulness  which  is  a  blending  of  the  feminine 
and  the  angelic. 

It  is  true  that  Putnam  Place  was  not 
without  its  men.  There  was  Mr.  Hooper; 
but  the  traditional  reverence  paid  his  cloth 
rejected  his  services  in  such  an  emergency 
as  a  smoking  chimney  as  little  short  of 
sacrilege ;  also  the  frankness  with  which  he 
spoke  of  himself  as  an  old  man  made  him 
seem  venerable  in  comparison  with  the 
women  folk.  There  was  Judge  Lattimer; 
but  although  he  expressed  himself  as  being, 
and  at  heart  was,  devoted  to  the  welfare  of 
the  Place,  there  was  a  sentiment — without 
involving  the  slightest  disparagement — that 
he  was  ornamental  rather  than  useful.  His 
vocation  was  to  adorn  the  Place,  and  this  he 
fulfilled  every  day  of  his  leisurely,  gracious 
life.  It  was  an  unwritten  article  in  the  code 
that  if  he  supplied  the  luxuries  of  life — the 
courtly  salutes,  the  sunny  compliments — 
others,  when  the  water-pipes  froze,  should 
supply  the  necessities. 

After  all,  perhaps  only  a  woman's  hand 
227 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

could  have  rendered  the  services  needed 
by  the  Place.  There  was  as  little  occasion 
for  the  continual  presence  of  a  masculine 
protector  as  for  the  work  of  a  tailor.  Only, 
as  Miss  Quincy  remarked,  "In  case  of 
emergency  it  would  be  a  convenience  to 
have  one  within  call."  What  the  Place 
needed  was  rather  the  kindly  supervision 
which  counts  no  trifles  too  insignificant,  no 
rites  too  unreasonable,  no  kindnesses  too 
intimate ;  this  Miss  Maria  Hale  contributed. 
Perhaps  some  explanation  other  than  the 
patent  inappropriateness  of  this  assignation 
was  recorded  in  the  early  chapters  of  the 
Place  annals;  perhaps  it  had  its  beginning 
in  accident,  when  Miss  Maria  had  chanced 
to  be  at  hand  to  succor  distressed  neighbors 
whose  faucets  wouldn't  turn  off  or  whose 
draughts  wouldn't  turn  on.  But  the  prece 
dent  of  shifting  responsibilities  to  her  slim 
shoulders  once  established,  it  was  maintain 
ed  without  further  investigation.  In  spring 
her  little  envelopes  of  flower-seeds,  thriftily 
garnered  in  the  preceding  season,  were  as 
228 


THE   FORCE 

securely  expected  as  the  returning  birds. 
In  summer,  at  the  first  faint  rumblings  of 
a  thunder-storm,  Miss  Maria  assumed  a  re 
sponsibility  towards  all  the  windows  in  the 
Place.  In  the  fall  it  was  she  who  foretold 
the  nights  on  which  it  would  be  well  to  tuck 
the  garden-plots  under  their  straw  bedding. 
In  winter  it  was  Miss  Maria  who,  by  some 
mysterious  communication,  secured  men  to 
shovel  snow  from  paths,  and  leave  white 
defiles,  blue-shadowed  by  high-piled  banks, 
as  a  passage  from  door  to  door.  At  this 
season,  too,  she  alone  was  the  force  that 
could  coerce  fractious  furnaces,  which  kept 
poor  ladies,  who  pretended  to  be  their  mis 
tresses,  toiling  like  slaves  up  and  down 
cellar  stairs.  The  care  of  a  peevish  child 
would  have  been  recreation  in  comparison 
with  the  tending  of  one  of  the  Place  fur 
naces.  Thoroughly  pampered  and  spoiled, 
they  demanded  and  received  unremitting 
attention.  Their  symptoms  were  gravely 
commented  upon,  whether  a  cooling  draught 
or  an  extra  wrap  were  indicated.  Miss 
229 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

Maria  alone,  in  loco  a  man,  could  reduce 
them  to  order,  and  so  give  the  ladies  a  few 
hours  of  much-needed  rest. 

In  all  seasons  a  sick-room  was  her  prov 
ince,  and  perhaps  the  greatest  achieve 
ment  of  her  character  was  her  ability  to 
enter,  without  intrusion,  rooms  sanctified 
not  only  by  their  intimacy  with  the  pres 
ent  but  with  the  past.  For  in  succeeding 
generations  the  houses  had  assumed  char 
acteristics  of  their  inmates,  experiences 
of  humanity  had  become  ingrained  in  their 
walls,  the  very  furniture  was  included  among 
the  circle  of  friends.  The  opening  of  the 
door  was  the  opening  of  the  heart.  The 
admission  to  the  room  was  the  admission  to 
a  treasury  of  confidence.  But  to  Miss  Maria 
these  holies  stood  open. 

Had  the  assumption  of  her  role  separated 
her  in  any  wise  from  her  sister  neighbors, 
doubtless  she  could  not  have  done  without 
officiousness  what  she  did  with  lowliness. 
But  her  strength  lay  in  her  weakness,  and 
she  was  efficient  because  of  her  inefficiencies. 
230 


THE    FORCE 

Notably  on  the  subject  of  figures,  the  veriest 
child  could  outwit  her.  When  a  salesman 
placed  the  "change"  in  her  thin,  creased 
palm  she  always  thumbed  it  over  with  a 
wise  air — a  habit  that,  as  a  child,  she  had 
admired  in  her  mother ;  but  when  she  poured 
the  money  into  her  worn  morocco  purse  she 
was  utterly  ignorant  as  to  the  correctness 
of  the  amount.  She  never  entered  a  bank 
without  a  mild  wonderment  that  so  many 
men  could  obtain  a  livelihood  by  receiving 
checks  only  to  give  them  out  again  as  cash. 
And  once,  when  she  had  helped  to  nurse  the 
judge  through  a  critical  attack  of  pneu 
monia,  she  had  asked  the  convalescent  if, 
perhaps,  he  would  be  so  good  as  to  explain 
to  her,  if  he  felt  quite  strong  enough,  how  a 
one-cent  stamp  could  be,  in  common  justice, 
of  the  same  size  as  a  two-cent  stamp.  "  Miss 
Maria  is  a  force  in  the  community,"  the 
judge  had  announced  to  his  sister  at  the 
conclusion  of  his  exposition — "a  force." 

Thus  it  was  in  her  official  capacity  that 
she  was  appealed  to  by  Miss  Forrester's 
231 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

Hetty,  a  handmaid  well  trained  in  the  pro 
prieties,  at  one  of  the  epoch-making  crises 
of  the  Place  history. 

"Yes;  what  is  it?"  asked  Miss  Hale,  anx 
iously,  through  the  crack  of  her  front  door 
at  six  o'clock  on  that  eventful  morning. 
"Miss  Forrester  hasn't  had  one  of  her  at 
tacks,  Hetty?" 

"No,  ma'am,"  answered  the  shawled 
woman.  "  I've  come  to  consult  you.  Last 
night  there  was  a  burglar  in  the  house,  and 
Miss  Forrester  doesn't  know  it." 

"Oh,  Hetty,  what  do  you  mean?  Come 
right  into  the  laundry  so  you  won't  be  over 
heard.  Now  sit  down  on  this  bench  and 
don't  grow  excited." 

"Last  night,  Miss  Hale,  we  went  to  bed 
just  as  usual  when  the  hall  clock  struck 
half -past  nine,  Miss  Forrester  carrying  the 
candle,  and  me  the  silver  basket.  We'd  felt 
of  all  the  doors  and  windows,  and  the  tub 
of  water  stood  in  the  entry-way,  and  the 
dinner-bell  was  strung  on  the  twine  between 
two  chairs  at  the  top  of  the  stairs,  just  as 
232 


THE   FORCE 

we  always  arrange  it  for  protection.  In 
the  night  I  heard  a  sort  of  scratching  noise. 
I  thought  it  must  be  the  cat,  so  I  called, 
'  Scat !'  Then  all  was  quiet.  But  this  morn 
ing  when  I  came  down  to  light  the  kitchen 
fire,  there  on  the  stair  carpet  were  burned 
matches.  A  burglar  must  have  been  there! 
So  I  threw  on  this  shawl  and  came  over 
just  as  I  am,  to  ask  how  am  I  to  break  it 
to  Miss  Forrester?" 

"  Don't  speak  about  it  till  after  break 
fast,"  advised  Miss  Maria,  rising  in  dignity 
from  an  inverted  wash-tub  and  gathering 
the  folds  of  her  gray  dressing-gown  about 
her.  "Wait  till  I  come  over." 

"Thank  you,  Miss  Hale.  Please  come 
soon.  The  house  seems  so  big  with  just 
two  women  in  it,  and  such  a  fearful  thing 
happening,"  quavered  Hetty,  as  she  stepped 
out  upon  the  dewy  lawn.  "If  I'd  seen  a 
man  in  the  house  I  don't  know  what  I 
should  have  done.  What  might  have  hap 
pened  if  I  hadn't  scared  him  off?" 

"There,  there,  I  wouldn't  think  about 
233 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

it,"  Miss  Maria  reassured  her.  "  He's  doubt 
less  far  away  by  this  time." 

At  breakfast  -  table  the  story  of  their 
neighbor's  hair-breadth  escape,  as  narrated 
by  Miss  Maria  to  her  sister  Eunice,  rendered 
the  simple  meal  quite  thrilling ;  the  more  so 
as  in  its  recitation  Miss  Maria  conceived 
the  idea  that  as  Millicent  Forrester  was  al 
ways  a  timid  soul  the  story  be  kept  secret, 
a  sealed  chapter,  never  to  meet  the  un 
conscious  heroine's  horrified  gaze.  To  this 
Miss  Eunice  would  not  consent,  lest  such 
secretiveness  should  savor  of  deceit,  unless 
the  sanction  of  the  church,  as  it  were,  could 
be  obtained  by  consulting  the  pastor's  wife. 
So  the  sisters  put  on  their  black  straw  gar 
den-hats,  raised  their  parasols,  and  stepped 
down  the  elmy  walk.  In  Mrs.  Hooper,  who 
was  engaged  in  that  hackneyed  employ 
ment  of  pastors'  wives — darning  stockings 
— they  found  a  responsive  listener.  But, 
feeling  the  responsibility  of  decision  too 
heavy,  she  called  Mr.  Hooper  from  the  gar 
den,  and,  while  he  leaned  over  the  window- 
234 


THE    FORCE 

sill,  poured  forth  the  detailed  account.  At 
its  conclusion  he  said  that  he  quite  agreed 
with  the  ladies  that  the  less  said  the  bet 
ter.  Doubtless  Hetty  herself  had  dropped 
the  matches  from  the  candle -stick,  and 
the  noise  was  the  cat ;  then  he  returned  to 
the  sweet  -  pea  bed.  The  ladies,  however, 
concurred  that  this  was  not  an  affair  to  be 
treated  thus  cursorily,  and  that,  while  to 
maintain  secrecy  was  their  manifest  duty, 
it  should  be  done  in  a  spirit  of  formality, 
earnestness,  and,  if  necessary,  of  martyr 
dom. 

As  the  Misses  Hale  returned  on  their  way, 
they  remembered  that  Miss  Quincy's  Susie 
was  the  sister  of  Miss  Forrester's  Hetty. 
Probably  Hetty  had  already  run  over  there, 
under  the  pretext  of  borrowing  a  Cup  of 
molasses  or  half  a  yeast  -  cake,  and  had 
divulged  all.  Plainly  they  must  pledge 
Miss  Quincy,  and,  through  her,  Susie,  to 
silence.  When,  upon  their  arrival,  they 
found  that  Susie  had  not  been  interviewed, 
they  judged  it  nevertheless  more  prudent 
235 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

to  forestall  future  information  by  giving 
Miss  Quincy  the  authentic  version  of  the 
averted  calamity. 

At  the  corner  they  saw  Judge  Lattimer, 
portly  and  deliberate,  turning  in  the  direc 
tion  of  Miss  Forrester's.  "Oh,  don't  tell 
her,"  called  Miss  Eunice.  Again  explana 
tions  had  to  follow,  with  a  suave  pledge  to 
secrecy  from  the  judge.  Within  ten  min 
utes  he  was  constrained  to  tell  his  sister, 
who  was  waiting  in  her  watch-tower,  every 
item  of  his  conversation  with  "the  Hale 
girls." 

Thus,  when  the  sisters  were  admitted  by 
Hetty,  yet  wide-eyed,  the  agreement  was 
that  Miss  Eunice  Hale  should  proceed  to 
the  shaded  sitting-room  and  exchange  the 
usual  items  of  a  morning  call  with  Miss 
Forrester,  who  was  knitting  her  daily  stent 
of  mittens  for  the  orphans'  home ;  but  that 
Miss  Maria  should  take  Hetty  aside,  and  im 
press  upon  her  that  the  danger  of  the  pre 
vious  night  should  never  be  mentioned  with 
in  the  pale  of  the  Place.  Wherefore  it  is 
236 


THE    FORCE 

that  of  all  the  residents  within  that  white- 
walled,  green  -  blinded  neighborhood,  Miss 
Forrester  is  the  only  one  ignorant  of  the 
burglary. 

Such  was  Miss  Hale's  arbitration  in  do 
mestic  affairs;  but  thereafter  she  was  to 
gain  an  international  reputation,  as  it  were, 
as  ambassador  from  Putnam  Place  to  the 
town  of  Putnam. 

It  was  a  lamentable  fact,  asserted  with 
many  a  head-shake,  that  while  the  Place  re 
mained  as  nearly  the  same  as  the  mutabil 
ity  of  time  would  permit,  the  town  was  not 
what  it  used  to  be.  Of  this  alteration  the 
outward  and  visible  sign  was  the  election  of 
John  McGinnis  as  mayor.  His  clever,  freck 
led  face  had  been  familiar  in  the  Place  since 
his  babyhood,  when  his  mother  had  served 
in  the  Hale  kitchen.  And  while  the  Place 
deplored  that  the  succession  in  office  of  their 
family  names  should  be  broken  by  an  in 
vader's,  nevertheless  the  Place  felt  a  certain 
pride  of  proprietorship  in  a  mayor  who,  as  a 
boy,  had  weeded  their  lawns,  brought  them 
237 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

their  morning's  milk,  and  had  executed  the 
other  multitudinous  jobs  assigned  to  a 
young  and  enterprising  Hibernian.  On  the 
morning  after  his  election  the  Place  con 
gratulated  him  with  all  the  warmth  which 
by  those  uninstructed  in  the  code  is  trans 
lated  as  democracy,  but  by  those  to  whom 
the  scroll  has  been  unrolled  is  accepted  as 
the  strongest  expression  of  the  old-time 
aristocracy ;  for  it  is  no  feeling  of  egalite,  but 
of  noblesse  oblige,  which  prompts  this  seem 
ing  brotherliness  towards  grocer  and  milk 
man  and  the  descendants  thereof.  Only 
those  of  the  old  school,  however,  can  fall  into 
the  attitude  with  the  simplicity  that  saves 
it  from  snobbishness,  the  grace  that  rescues 
it  from  vulgarity.  Perhaps  the  art  of  true 
condescension  will  soon  be  numbered  among 
those  that  are  lost. 

But  fancy  the  consternation  which  reign 
ed  when  in  The  Placard  appeared  the  an 
nouncement  that  the  elm  at  the  corner  of 
the  Place  had  been  deemed  unsafe  and  was 
to  be  cut  down,  "  By  order  of  the  mayor, 
238 


THE    FORCE 

John  McGinnis."  Incredible!  It  was  the 
Place's  elm,  was  it  not?  It  stood  on  the 
soil  of  the  Place;  it  had  been  planted  by 
ancestors  of  the  Place;  then  tell  us,  Judge 
Lattimer,  is  it  not  our  tree?-  But  alas! 
the  judge  was  "on  circuit."  Never  mind. 
It  was  absurd  to  consider  that  magnificent 
tree  as  unsafe,  which,  except  for  a  crack  here 
and  there,  was  in  perfect  condition,  and 
served  so  admirably  as  a  screen  to  seclude 
the  Place  from  the  street.  It  is  perfectly 
safe,  is  it  not,  Mr.  Hooper?  But,  alas!  Mr. 
Hooper  was  attending  a  convention.  So 
that  evening  the  ladies  convened  in  the  Hale 
parlor,  and  engaged  in  such  animated  agree 
ment  that  at  their  departure  they  felt  that 
they  had  demonstrated  to  a  listening  world 
that  the  tree  was  one  of  their  rights,  that  it 
was  extremely  improbable  that  one  of  their 
rights  would  be  infringed,  but  that  if  it  were 
it  should  be  defended. 

Yet  the  next  morning  two  working-men 
appeared  with  ropes  and  axes  and  an  air 
of  business.     Miss  Maria  hastened  out,  one 
239 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

delicate  hand  holding  a  fluffy  scarf  over  her 
head,  the  other  clutching  the  gray  skirt  that 
the  wind  was  festively  swaying.  "  You  cer 
tainly  are  not  here  with  any  intention  of 
touching  that  tree?"  she  asked,  in  wide- 
eyed  astonishment. 

The  men  had  been  under  that  impression, 
but  as  they  looked  at  her  troubled  blue  eyes 
and  the  gray  curl  that  blew  across  her  fore 
head  they  began  to  doubt  their  original  in 
tentions.  "We  were  sent  here,"  said  one, 
apologetically,  raising  his  cap,  "  by  the  order 
of  the  mayor." 

"Oh,  then,"  said  Miss  Maria,  her  relief 
showing  in  her  voice,  "before  you  go  any 
further,  please  wait  till  I  have  spoken  with 
Mr.  McGinnis." 

She  hastened  back  for  her  bonnet  and 
gloves  and  betook  herself  down  the  street 
to  the  line  of  shops  where  the  sign,  not  yet 
time-worn,  "John  McGinnis,  Attorney-at- 
Law,"  indicated  which  of  the  narrow, 
dusty  stairways  should  be  climbed.  With 
much  trepidation  Miss  Maria  mounted.  She 
240 


had  an  awe  of  all  business  customs,  that 
was  matched  only  by  her  ignorance,  and 
she  tapped  daintily  on  the  dull-glass  door 
inscribed  with  black  lettering. 

"Come  in,  can't  you?"  called  the  voice 
of  John. 

Miss  Maria  did  not  know  what  to  do. 
How  embarrassed  John  would  be  to  learn 
that  he  had  spoken  to  her  in  that  boisterous 
way !  Would  it  not  be  better  if  she  should 
steal  away  and  return  to  give  opportunity 
for  a  fresh  introduction  ?  She  tiptoed  to  the 
stairs. 

Evidently  under  the  impression  that  here 
was  some  naughty  boy  whom  he  would 
catch  in  the  act,  the  mayor  flung  open  the 
door.  "Why,  Miss  Maria,"  he  stammered, 
flushing  as  when  he  was  a  boy,  "  I  beg  your 
pardon.  Have  you  come  to  see  me  ?  Won't 
you  step  in?" 

"  What  a  pleasant  office  you  have,  John!" 
said  she,  looking  about  upon  its  heaped 
shelves  and  littered  tables. 

"I'm  afraid  the  air  is  not  very  fresh," 
16  241 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

he  murmured,  suddenly  aware  that  it 
was  heavy  with  dust  and  tobacco-smoke. 
"Sha'n't  I  open  the  window?" 

Miss  Maria  waved  her  hand  in  gracious 
expostulation.  "  I  will  interrupt  your  work 
only  for  a  minute,"  she  said.  "A  strange 
report  has  reached  me,  John — very  strange ; 
and  it  concerns  you,  John.  But  it  is  so 
uncharacteristic  of  you  that  I  have  come 
directly  to  you  about  it." 

"That's  very  good  of  you,  I'm  sure," 
muttered  John,  wondering  vaguely  why  he, 
who  a  minute  before  had  regarded  himself 
as  a  tolerably  blameless  person,  should  thus 
stand  a  culprit  already  convicted  before  this 
timorous  lady. 

"  I  suppose,  John,"  said  she,  "  as  you  were 
almost  a  baby  when  your  mother  lived  with 
my  mother,  that  you  don't  remember  my 
father?" 

"  Ah,  but  I  do,"  John  responded.  "  Never 
shall  I  forget  his  kindness  to  me  when  I  was 
a  little  thing,  and  an  awful  nuisance,  too, 
to  my  thinking." 

242 


THE    FORCE 

"He  was  very  fond  of  children,"  agreed 
Miss  Maria,  "  and  he  was  especially  fond  of 
you.  He  often  said  that  you  would  grow 
up  to  be  a  credit  to  us  all." 

John  blushed.  "  I  remember  that  he  let 
me  keep  the  yellow  puppy,  when  my  mother 
told  me  I  must  have  him  drowned.  'The 
idea,'  she  said,  '  of  the  cook's  boy  keeping  a 
dog!'  But  your  father  was  in  the  garden 
and  heard  us.  '  Let  him  have  his  pet,'  he 
said.  '  I  had  a  yellow  dog  myself  when  I  was 
his  age.'" 

"Yes,  he  was  fond  of  animals,  too.  He 
was  fond  of  all  things  that  he  could  be  kind 
to— children  and  animals  and  plants.  The 
cut-birch  on  our  lawn  he  planted  himself. 
But  the  big  elm  at  the  corner  was  his  es 
pecial  pride.  He  often  used  to  walk  round 
that  and  measure  it  with  his  gold-headed 
cane." 

"  I  remember  I  used  to  watch  him  when  I 
was  digging  the  weeds  along  the  sidewalk." 

"Yes,  yes.  But  then,  after  that,  when 
you  were  big  enough  to  drive  the  grocery 
243 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

cart,  my  father  was  not  so  strong.  He 
could  walk  out  only  as  far  as  the  tree,  but 
he  used  to  go  there  every  morning." 

"  He  always  bowed  to  me  as  if  he  and  I 
were  the  best  of  friends,"  said  John,  devout 
ly.  "May  Heaven  rest  his  soul!  He  was 
the  best  of  men.  And  he  used  to  ask  me 
about  my  horse,  the  dappled  one,  that 
looked  for  all  the  world  like  a  hobby-horse, 
and  went  like  one." 

"  But,  John,  I  must  not  take  up  your 
valuable  time.  Now  about  this  report. 
This  morning  I  was  told  that  my  father's  old 
elm-tree  was  to  be  cut  down,  and  by  your 
order.  But  I  said  to  myself : '  No,  that  is  a 
mistake.  John  McGinnis  would  never  give 
such  an  order.  Little  John,  who  used  to 
play  on  my  mother's  kitchen  floor,  with  my 
big  brother's  toys — he  would  never  order 
the  tree  that  my  father  took  such  pride  in 
to  be  cut  down.  No,  indeed,  John  McGin 
nis  would  never  dream  of  such  a  thing.' '; 

There  was  a  pause.     "May  I  ask  who 
told  you?"  said  John. 
244 


THE    FORCE 

"A  man  with  ropes  and  tools  who  came 
to  the  tree  this  morning." 

"Stupid  man!"  exclaimed  John,  while 
an  expression  of  vast  relief  overspread  his 
face.  "When  he  was  sent  to  trim  a  few 
overhanging  branches  and  cement  a  knot 
hole  or  two.  No,  indeed,  Miss  Maria,"  he 
repeated,  as  he  followed  her  to  hold  the 
door  open.  "  You  were  quite  right.  Little 
John  McGinnis  would  never  dream  of  doing 
such  a  thing." 

"  Oh  no,  we  were  not  in  the  least  concern 
ed;  it  was  just  as  we'd  expected,"  said  the 
ladies  when  the  workmen,  after  performing 
architectural  miracles  on  the  tree,  had  de 
parted,  "for  you  know  that  Judge  Lattimer 
says  that  Miss  Maria  is  a  force." 


THE    BABY 


T  was  October.  No  longer 
were  lilac  -  sprigged  muslins 
the  appointed  costumes  for 
morning  calls,  but  cashmere 
shawls  with  palm-leaf  designs 
covered  the  ladies'  slim  shoulders.  At  ser 
vice  on  Sunday  mornings  the  fragrance  of 
camphor-chests,  in  which  winter  wraps  had 
lain,  hung  heavy  on  the  air.  Garden  plants 
had  been  "potted"  for  the  winter,  and,  on 
little  green  flights  of  steps,  were  stationed 
behind  lace-curtained  parlor  windows.  The 
only  flowers  left  blooming  in  the  box-bor 
dered  beds  were  the  chrysanthemums — the 
bushy  kind,  with  neat,  button-like  blossoms, 
yellow  and  white  and  maroon,  compact  as 
daisy  centres.  The  yellow  elm  leaves  shone 
246 


THE    BABY 

like  metal  against  the  pale  sky.  The  air 
snapped  and  crackled  with  autumn  frost 
and  autumn  sunshine;  and  the  First  Con 
gregational  horse  had  been  seen  to  trample 
the  leaves,  wind-swept  into  the  gutter,  to 
pull  at  the  frost-coated  hitching-post,  and 
to  draw  the  Hooper  buggy,  at  what  he 
doubtless  believed  to  be  a  trot,  the  length 
of  the  Place. 

With  a  purple  knitted  shawl  over  her 
shoulders,  Miss  Quincy  picked  her  way 
across  the  street  and  entered  the  Hale  hall. 
"Miss  Eunice!"  she  called,  directing  her 
voice  up  the  stairs,  round  the  landing,  and 
along  the  upper  hall — for  in  the  Place  such 
vocal  feats  are  the  customary  announce 
ment  of  one's  presence.  "Come  right  up," 
was  the  descending  answer.  So  the  visitor 
climbed  the  white-painted  stairs,  passed  the 
clock  and  warming-pan  standing  guard  at 
the  corners  of  the  landing,  and  was  welcomed 
by  Miss  Eunice  at  the  doorway  of  "  the  east 
room."  Here  the  sunshine  fell  pleasant 
ly  through  muslin  curtains  and  across  the 
247 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

dimity-hung  furniture  of  the  room  that  had 
been  Miss  Eunice's  since  girlhood.  Even 
now  its  austere  simplicity  was  broken  by  a 
few  girlish  touches — the  ribbon-tied  work- 
basket,  the  embroidered  cloth  over  the 
"stand"  set  at  the  bed-head,  with  candle, 
watch-case,  and  Testament,  the  minutely 
executed  drawings  over  the  mantel-shelf  of 
"A  Knight"  and  "A  Brigand."  The  pro 
gramme  of  a  course  of  lectures  to  be  held  in 
the  church  parlors,  the  only  appointed  so 
cial  event  for  the  fall,  was  stuck  in  the 
mirror.  The  room  had  never  grown  older 
in  spirit  than  when,  forty  years  before, 
Eunice  had  first  been  installed  there.  Its 
atmosphere  was  maidenly,  but  not  spin- 
sterly. 

"I've  had  a  letter  from  Caroline,"  began 
Miss  Quincy,  when  Miss  Eunice  had  again 
seated  herself  at  the  work-table.  "She  is 
ill,  and  wants  me  to  take  the  baby  for  a 
month." 

"The  baby!"  exclaimed  Miss  Eunice,  lay 
ing  down  the  white  stocking  whose  heel  she 
248 


THE    BABY 

was  daintily  mending  with  needle  held  at 
finger-tips — "to  take  care  of?" 

"Yes,"  her  friend  went  on,  rocking  ner 
vously.  "  Of  course  I  am  glad  to  have  this 
opportunity  to  help,  but  I  do  realize  that 
this  is  a  great  undertaking." 

"I  should  say  so!"  the  other  ejaculated, 
quite  appalled. 

"It  is  such  a  responsibility  to  have  a 
child  in  the  house.  When  I  was  twelve," 
she  mused,  "  I  can  remember  rocking  my 
brother  Joshua  to  sleep." 

"There  were  five  of  us,  you  know,"  said 
Miss  Eunice,  "but  I  was  the  youngest.  I 
remember  hearing  my  mother  speak  of 
taking  care  of  babies  as  if  it  was  enjoyable. 
But  I  cannot  remember  ever  having  one  in 
the  house.  My  sister  Maria  was  efficient, 
even  when  she  was  a  child,  in  the  care  of 
other  children.  If  she  were  here  she  would 
know  how  to  help  you  now." 

"Well,  I  must  be  going,"  said  Miss  Quin- 
cy,  abruptly,  after  a  moment's  pause  that 
Miss  Eunice  might  steady  her  voice,  that 
249 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

always  trembled  in  pronouncing  the  name 
of  the  sister  whose  death  had  left  her  so 
pitiably  desolate.  "I  didn't  do  anything 
about  the  house  after  I  had  read  that  letter. 
I  ran  right  across  to  ask  you  if  you  won't 
come  over  every  morning  (you  see,  I  can't 
be  going  out)  and  see  if  the  child  looks 
all  right." 

"Of  course  I'll  come,  and  do  all  in  my 
power,"  replied  Miss  Eunice,  gravely.  "As 
I  look  back  upon  my  childhood  I  wonder 
how  my  mother  ever  found  time  to  dust  the 
parlor  or  to  make  desserts.  You  must  let 
me  help  about  the  house,  for  I  am  sure  that 
your  Annie  will  have  many  additional 
duties.  But  about  the  baby  itself — " 

"Himself,"  corrected  Miss  Quincy  — 
"Homer  Bumpus,  Junior." 

"Himself — you  mustn't  expect  me  to  do 
anything,  for  I  should  be  sure  to  do  it  wrong. 
To  tell  the  truth,  when  I've  seen  the  baby- 
carriages  on  Putnam  Street  I've  been  rather 
afraid  to  go  near  them,  for  fear  of  doing 
them  some  damage;  and  I've  fancied  that 
250 


THE    BABY 

the  children  have  always  known  how  igno 
rant  I  am,  and  are  afraid  of  me.  Some 
women,  I've  been  told,  have  a  'faculty,' 
as  it's  called,  with  babies.  But  I  haven't. 
So  you  won't  take  it  unkindly  if  I  don't 
offer  to  help  you  in  its — I  mean  his — care. 
I'll  try  to  make  up  in  other  ways." 

"  Indeed,  I'll  be  very  much  indebted  to 
you  for  coming  at  all,"  responded  Miss 
Quincy,  with  due  formality. 

That  evening,  from  her  bedroom  window, 
Miss  Eunice  saw  Mr.  Bumpus  arrive,  with 
what,  in  the  light  of  her  neighbor's  open 
door,  looked  like  an  oblong  white  bundle 
over  his  shoulder.  An  hour  later,  through 
the  stillness  of  the  Place,  she  heard  his 
cheerful  masculine  voice  bidding  Miss 
Quincy  good-bye.  "I  hope  the  youngster 
will  behave  himself,"  said  he.  "  If  he  doesn't, 
treat  him  as  if  he  were  your  own  child." 

"How    like    a    man!"    murmured    Miss 

Eunice,   drawing  the  curtains;  "and  how 

heavily  he  walks!    Yes,  he  can  leave  that 

baby  with  his  cousin  and  go  off  whistling. 

251 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

Poor  Miss  Quincy!  To-morrow  I'll  go  over 
early  in  the  morning — babies  sleep  till  quite 
late,  I  presume — and  help  tidy  her  rooms; 
and  then  I'll  slip  away  before  the  child 
wakes." 

So,  while  the  dew  was  yet  on  the  grass, 
and  the  elm-tree  shadows  yet  long  across 
the  lawns,  Miss  Eunice,  a  bowl  of  custard 
as  a  sympathetic  offering  in  one  hand,  her 
favorite  dusting-cloth,  freshly  washed,  in 
the  other,  crossed  to  the  Quincy  house  and 
quietly  opened  the  front  door.  A  loud  wail, 
not  begun  with  her  entrance,  but  evidently 
the  diminuendo  after  a  long-sustained  high 
note,  greeted  her.  Then  came  a  silence  so 
long  that  she,  not  reckoning  on  the  time 
required  for  the  indrawing  of  breath,  that 
the  succeeding  wail  may  be  duly  full  and 
prolonged,  fancied  that  the  child  must  have 
suddenly  abandoned  all  idea  of  further 
lamentation.  "Miss  Quincy!"  she  called. 
But  her  voice  was  drowned  in  the  full  blast 
of  the  second  wail,  and,  alarmed  for  the 
child's  health,  she  ran  up-stairs  to  the  bed- 
252 


THE    BABY 

room.  There,  sitting  upright  in  the  an 
cestral  four-poster,  banked  round  with 
pillows,  sat  a  two-year-old  child,  his  face 
contorted  with  crying,  and  tear-drops  stand 
ing  out  on  his  round,  red  cheeks.  Miss  Eu 
nice  appeared  in  the  doorway  just  in  time 
to  catch  a  glimpse  of  Miss  Quincy  bending 
over  him,  while  he,  raising  one  chubby 
fist,  with  all  his  baby  might  smote  her  upon 
the  cheek.  At  the  impotence  of  the  blow 
he  opened  his  mouth  to  wail  again.  But 
the  cry  stopped  half-way,  for  at  that  mo 
ment  he  caught  sight  of  Miss  Eunice,  with 
her  soft  brown  hair  and  wide  blue  eyes,  her 
color  heightened  by  the  morning  air,  her 
arms,  bearing  the  bowl  and  the  duster,  out 
stretched.  ' '  Mamma,  mamma !' '  he  scream 
ed,  scrambling  over  the  pillows.  All  un 
mindful  of  the  bumps  which  Miss  Quincy's 
arms  could  not  avert,  with  uncertain  but 
purposeful  steps  he  made  his  way  across  the 
room,  and,  clutching  Miss  Eunice's  smooth 
skirt  in  both  hands,  buried  his  head  against 
her  knee. 

253 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

"There,"  said  Miss  Quincy,  dropping, 
completely  exhausted,  into  a  chair  by  the 
bedside,  "that's  all  the  sense  babies  have. 
His  mother's  fair,  you  know,  and  I'm  black 
as  an  Indian.  I  suppose  I  scared  him." 
With  new  disfavor  she  regarded  her  face, 
reflected  in  the  tilted  glass  on  the  mahogany 
bureau.  "I  never  was  well  favored,"  she 
went  on,  "but  I  didn't  suppose  I  was  as 
homely  as  little  Homer  makes  out." 

"It  isn't  that,  Luella,"  said  Miss  Eunice, 
unconscious  of  the  new  informality,  as  she 
stroked  the  downy,  mouse-colored  hair  that 
even  to  her  smooth  fingers  seemed  strangely 
soft;  "he  thinks  that  I  am  his  mother." 

The  baby  gave  a  sigh  of  content,  and, 
still  clutching  her  skirt,  looked  up  into 
her  face.  "Mamma,"  he  said,  and  smiled, 
while  two  gathering  tears  rolled  down  and 
splashed  upon  his  night-gown. 

With  an  authority  quite  new  to  her, 
Miss  Eunice  laid  down  her  burdens,  gath 
ered  him  in  her  arms,  and  seated  herself  by 
the  hearth-fire.  Here  the  little  bath-tub  and 
254 


THE    BABY 

towel-rack  and  all  the  other  paraphernalia 
of  Homer's  toilet  stood  ready,  but  aban 
doned  by  Miss  Quincy.  "  Have  his  milk 
warming,  Luella,"  she  said;  "he'll  need  it 
when  he  is  dressed,  after  all  this  excitement. 
And  please  tell  Annie  to  bring  another 
pitcher  of  hot  water."  With  hands  decisive 
in  every  movement  as  they  had  never  been 
before  in  her  life,  she  unbuttoned  and  untied 
his  small  white  garments,  while  the  child 
burrowed  his  downy  head  in  the  hollow  of 
her  arm.  "Mamma,"  he  said  again.  Her 
down -bent  face  was  almost  hidden,  but 
when  she  looked  up  her  eyes  were  glowing. 
"You  must  be  tired,  Luella,"  said  she;  "do 
go  and  have  breakfast.  You  needn't  give 
a  moment's  anxiety  to  the  baby.  I  will 
assume  all  that  care,"  she  added,  with  a 
new-found  dignity  which  refused  to  see  any 
thing  ludicrous  in  her  appropriation  of  her 
friend's  charge.  The  situation  was  accepted 
as  unquestioningly  by  Miss  Quincy  as  were 
the  other  facts  in  her  love-bare  life. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  hurriedly,  as  to  some 
255 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

one  obviously  in  authority — "yes,  I'll  have 
his  breakfast  ready." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Miss  Eunice,  gra 
ciously. 

Throughout  the  following  month  Miss 
Eunice  did  not  once  return  to  her  home. 
Her  little  serving-maid,  heretofore  consid 
ered  incapable  of  assuming  such  responsibil 
ities  as  watering  the  geraniums  and  feed 
ing  the  canary,  was  unhesitatingly  left  in 
charge.  With  new  accessions  of  dignity, 
Miss  Eunice  realized  that,  save  for  her 
presence,  one  little  child  would  be  helpless 
and  miserable.  In  the  evenings,  at  bed 
time,  the  baby  imperiously  demanded  her 
attention ;  and  all  night  long  she  was  bliss 
fully  aware  of  his  soft,  warm  body  pressed 
close  to  her  side.  Through  the  days  each 
hour  brought  some  service,  accepted  on 
Homer's  part  in  true  baby  fashion,  with 
reluctance  or  acquiescence,  or  even  with 
complacence,  but  never  with  gratitude ;  and 
rendered  with  an  ecstasy  of  devotion  by 
Miss  Eunice. 

256 


THE    BABY 

After  breakfast,  when  the  air  was  freshly 
crisped  with  sunshine,  she  would  gather  up 
the  baby,  his  knees  pressed  against  her 
heart,  and  with  a  long,  swinging  step,  quite 
other  than  her  habitual  hurried  yet  hesitat 
ing  gait,  pace  the  Greek  portico.  In  the 
early  afternoons,  when  for  a  few  hours  the 
air  was  balmy  and  the  sun  streamed  mel 
lowly  through  the  silhouetted  elm  branches, 
she  would  put  the  child  in  his  carriage  and 
institute  an  imperial  progress  to  and  fro  in 
the  Place.  How  different  then  was  her 
bearing  from  her  former  manner  of  shrink 
ing  deprecation !  Timid  no  longer,  she  com 
manded  dogs  with  lolling  tongues  to  go 
away.  Even  the  Hooper  horse,  standing 
with  its  fore-feet  on  the  curb,  in  accordance 
with  time-honored  precedent,  had  no  terrors 
for  her  when  his  inquisitiveness  interfered 
with  the  baby's  airing.  To  the  expressions 
of  admiration  that  Homer  elicited  from 
passers-by  she  was  wont  to  respond  modest 
ly,  but  with  a  beaming  face.  "I  suppose 
there  may  be  handsomer  babies,"  she  would 
17  257 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

say,  tucking  in  more  securely  the  white, 
furry  robe,  and  restoring  the  flannel  rabbit 
to  the  outstretched  mittens,  "but  this  is  a 
perfectly  healthy  child."  The  line  in  the 
middle  of  the  sidewalk,  being  the  smoothest, 
was  appropriated  as  the  route  for  the  baby- 
carriage,  and  her  expectation  that  any  one 
would  consider  it  a  privilege  to  turn  into  the 
gutter  was  never  disappointed.  With  a 
pride  which  none  of  the  neighbors  thought 
of  resenting,  she  accepted  their  homage. 
She  received,  not  as  a  favor,  but  as  a  right, 
the  tribute  paid  to  her  new-found  woman 
hood. 

"Eunice  Hale  was  pretty  when  a  girl," 
said  Judge  Lattimer  to  his  sister,  "but  I 
had  never  regarded  her  as  a  beautiful  wom 
an  until  I  saw  her  this  morning  at  Miss 
Quincy's  gate.  And  then  she  was  beautiful. 
She  has  changed,  Helena,  this  fall.  There's 
a  difference — I  can't  tell  what." 

His  sister  nodded  wisely  and  pursed  her 
lips.  She  could  have  recounted  every  detail 
that  had  made  the  change,  had  she  con- 
258 


THE    BABY 

sidered  it,  in  the  first  place,  "quite  nice," 
and  in  the  second  place,  worth  while,  in  any 
cause,  to  enlighten  poor  ignorant  man. 
Through  the  cracks  of  the  green  blind  she 
had  watched  Miss  Eunice's  springing  step; 
the  spirited  poise  of  the  head,  with  the 
shoulders  thrown  back,  that  the  child  might 
lean  against  her  bosom ;  her  hair,  roughened 
and  loosened  by  clutching  baby  fingers; 
the  pretty  disarrangement  in  her  dress ;  her 
dimples,  come  back  again  in  response  to 
baby  mirth ;  her  cheeks  flushed  with  anima 
tion;  her  eyes  deep  with  tenderness. 

"It  is  a  great  pity,"  the  judge  went  on, 
"  that  she  refused  young  Stedman." 

"He  was  not  worthy  of  her,"  replied  his 
sister,  briefly  and  conclusively. 

"  Oh,  as  to  that,"  said  the  judge,  with  his 
charming  smile,  "  who  is?" 

At  the  end  of  the   month    the  baby's 

father  drove  to  Putnam  Place  in  the  hack 

that  had  stood  so  long  by  the  station  door 

that  its  leave  of  absence  seemed  as  inde- 

259 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

corous  and  even  dangerous  as  if  the  turn 
table  or  the  telegraph-poles  should  have 
gone  away.  As  long  as  Miss  Eunice  held 
the  child  in  her  arms  she  did  not  seem  to 
realize  that  he  was  to  be  taken  from  her. 
She  drew  his  arms,  that  unfailingly  crooked 
in  the  wrong  directions,  into  his  coat,  while 
he,  in  baby  -  wise,  looked  through  and  far 
beyond  her.  She  tied  on  his  cap,  while  he, 
with  childish  disinterestedness  in  such  pro 
ceedings,  pulled  at  her  brooch.  Then  the 
man  gathered  the  baby  awkwardly  on  his 
arm,  and  little  Homer  found  a  new  diver 
sion  in  pulling  his  father's  ear.  "I  can 
never  thank  you  enough  for  the  care 
you  have  taken  of  the  child,"  said  the 
father.  "Carrie  will  write  to  you  in 
a  few  days,  when  she  is  a  little  strong 
er.  You  have  been  very  good  to  help  us 
out." 

But  no  answering  formula  rose  to  Miss 

Eunice's  lips.     She  was  watching  the  little 

brown  curl  that  fitted  so  softly  into  the 

hollow  in  the  nape  of  the  baby's  neck. 

260 


THE    BABY 

Silently  she  followed  Miss  Quincy  and  Mr. 
Bumpus  to  the  Greek  portico.  Her  arms 
felt  strangely  empty.  She  watched  the 
father  and  son  install  themselves  in  the 
hack.  The  child  did  not  once  look  back. 
The  horse  was  switching  his  tail  in  an  in 
teresting  manner. 

"Wave  bye-bye,"  said  Mr.  Bumpus, 
senior. 

At  these  fateful  words  the  import  of  the 
situation  seemed  to  burst  upon  the  child. 
With  a  face  piteous  in  baby  grief,  he  turned 
to  Miss  Eunice.  "Mamma,"  he  called, 
despairingly.  But  his  father  pulled  up  the 
carriage  window,  and  the  child's  lamen 
tations  were  lost  in  the  rattle  of  the 
wheels. 

Miss  Eunice  watched  the  hack  until  it 
disappeared  behind  the  giant  elm  at  the 
corner  of  the  Place. 

"Well,  I  don't  know  what  I  should  have 
done  without  you,"  said  Miss  Quincy. 

But  Miss  Eunice,  still  speechless,  lifted 
her  eyes,  again  grown  faded  and  wistful,  to 
261 


PUTNAM    PLACE 

her  neighbor's.  And  then,  the  autumn  sun 
shine  upon  her  bowed  head,  her  skirts  trail 
ing  in  the  fallen  yellow  leaves,  her  hands 
clasped  upon  her  sunken  bosom,  she  return 
ed  to  her  empty  house. 


THE    END 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


Form  L9-Series  444 


. 


001375918    8 


PLEASE  DO   NOT    REMOVE 
THIS   BOOK  CARDIJ 


University  Research  Library 


•in 


Jo 
»— •• 

T? 


